Community Empowerment Program
- P Project/Program
? Activity Status: Unknown
Key Information
The CEP is a three-year, non-formal empowering education model that uses a human rights-based curriculum to reinforce the skills and knowledge of partner communities and empower them to lead their own development. By bringing communities together to discuss and define a values-based vision for their future, the approach embodied in the Community Empowerment Program (CEP) catalyzes establishment of a new social equilibrium based on shared values and social expectations. When empowered with new community-designed norms and the knowledge and skills to apply them, communities will also shift individual and collective behaviors to support the rights and well-being of those who had previously been left on the sidelines of local decision-making, namely women and youth.
The CEP is comprised of two modules - the Kobi and the Aawde. The Kobi (meaning to prepare the soil in Mandinka) modules include democracy, human rights and responsibilities, conflict resolution, and health and hygiene. The Aawde (meaning to plant the seed in Pulaar) modules include literacy, numeracy, project management, and SMS messaging. The CEP is led by a facilitator of the same ethnic group as the participant village, who lives in the community for the duration of the program. It is conducted entirely in local languages.
Community Management Committees (CMCs) - majority-female, democratically elected governance bodies at the community level - are formed in the course of the Community Empowerment Program and are tasked with implementing the community’s vision for the future, which is developed during the CEP. Every Community Management Committee has a list of activities and outcomes they proudly share, all of which link back to their collective vision of well-being. These groups remain active many years after Tostan’s intervention ends, in many cases more than a decade.
Lead Implementing Organization(s)
Location(s)
Sub-Saharan Africa
Gambia, The, Guinea-Bissau, Senegal
Government Affiliation
Non-governmental programYears
1991 -
Partner(s)
Not applicable or unknown
Ministry Affiliation
UnknownFunder(s)
Not applicable or unknown
COVID-19 Response
Not changedGeographic Scope
Global / regionalMeets gender-transformative education criteria from the TES
UnknownAreas of Work Back to Top
Education areas
Other skills
- Financial literacy
- Life skills/sexuality education
- Rights/empowerment education
Skills
- Civics education
- Literacy
- Numeracy
Cross-cutting areas
- Community sensitization
- Early/child marriage
- Economic/livelihoods (including savings/financial inclusion, etc.)
- Empowerment
- Female genital mutilation/cutting
- Gender equality
- Masculinities/boys
- Other cultural practices
- Social and gender norms and beliefs
- Violence (at home, in relationships)
Program participants
Other populations reached
- Community leaders
- Fathers
- Mothers
- Other community members - female
- Other community members - male
- Other family members
- Parent-teacher associations/school management committees
- Religious leaders
- Spouses/partners
Participants include
Not applicable or unknown
Program Approaches Back to Top
Community engagement/advocacy/sensitization
- Community mobilization
- General awareness-raising/community engagement
Life skills education
- Gender, rights and power
Reducing economic barriers
- Financial literacy training
Tutoring/strengthening academic skills
- Literacy - outside the classroom
- Numeracy - outside the classroom
Women's empowerment programs
- Empowerment training
Program Goals Back to Top
Education goals
- Increased literacy
- Increased numeracy
- Increased school completion (general)
- Increased school enrolment (general)
Cross-cutting goals
- Changed social norms
- Improved maternal, newborn, and/or child health (MNCH)
- Increased advocacy/civic engagement
- Increased agency and empowerment
- Increased knowledge of rights
- More equitable gender attitudes and norms
- Reduced child marriage
- Reduced intimate partner violence
- Reduced poverty/increase household well-being