During our summer in the United States, and the ‘winter’ in northern Tanzania, NCN sponsored a leader from one of its Tanzanian partner organizations to attend a training in Senegal.
Mbekure, head coordinator of the Alailelai Maasai Sustainability Organization (AMSO), traveled from East Africa to West Africa, to participate in this intensive training. The hands-on workshop, A Human-Rights Approach to Community-led Development, was held outside of Dakar, Senegal, at the training center of the internationally renowned organization, Tostan.
For 10 days, Mbekure was fully engaged, participating in lessons on human rights, learning about Senegalese culture, exchanging stories about community projects, presenting about his own Maasai culture and community work at home, and even visiting local villages that have successfully eliminated female genital cutting practices.
With a big smile on his face and emanating clear excitement in his heart, Mbekure repeatedly explains how much he learned at Tostan when asked about the trip.
He learned a lot about human rights, including articles from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)— a declaration officially adopted by the UN in 1948 to protect the rights of people all over the world.
But the rights contained there within are often unknown to those who experience the most violations. Mbekure is adamant about bringing that knowledge back to his community.
Mbekure was also enthusiastic about the opportunity to meet, work with, and learn from a group of community development workers and activists from around the world. He made friends with people from Somalia, the United States, Morocco, Uganda, Kenya, India and the United Kingdom. He says that it was wonderful to learn about their cultures and hear about all of the great work each person is doing in their own community. At the Tostan training, many attendees discussed potential projects and partnerships!
While Mbekure cannot say that he enjoyed the food much in Senegal (too spicy, which is atypical in Maasai culture and inner land-based Tanzanian culture), he loved the opportunity to see Senegal and learn about the culture. He saw the Atlantic Ocean for the first time and visited Gorée Island off the coast, where the slave trade took place under colonialism. And when he first arrived, he was given a Senegalese name, Babakaa, which he shares with a sense of pride.
In the new year, AMSO intends to prioritize health programming more, with a long term goal of addressing female genital cutting (FGC).
Since the start of its work, Tostan has seen more than 7,200 communities from eight countries declare abandonment of FGC and child/forced marriage. Having visited some of those villages, and learned the methodology of Tostan—which has human rights education at the heart of its community empowerment model—Mbekure has returned to his village feeling inspired and ready to take action.
As NCN tries to support its local Tanzanian partners in leading their own development path forward, we are excited that this training had a significant impact on AMSO Coordinator Mbekure. We are confident that the skills we have been trying to build with him are growing every day and that this training has only added on to that!
