"Melching is a tremendous addition to the community of Skoll entrepreneurs and someone who has demonstrated those key characteristics of a successful social entrepreneur: inspiration, creativity, direct action, courage and fortitude …. Tostan is tackling a complex social problem with a sustainable, scalable solution.”

Sally Osberg, President and CEO of the Skoll Foundation.

Tostan and Molly Melching Receive 2010 Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship

On April 15, 2010, Molly Melching, founder and executive director of Tostan, was awarded the Skoll Foundation’s prestigious Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship . The award, which celebrates groundbreaking and innovative ideas that drive large-scale social change around the world, was given in recognition of the pioneering work of Tostan’s Community Empowerment Program (CEP) , which utilizes holistic human rights education to foster community-led development. According to the Skoll Foundation, "a cornerstone of the program and a symbol of its success" has been the abandonment of the traditional practice of female genital cutting (FGC) by over 4,800 communities in Senegal, Guinea, Burkina Faso, The Gambia and Somalia at the time of the award. Other community-led successes include increased rates of school enrollment for girls, birth registration, as well as improvements in health, the environment, and economic opportunity, especially for women. As part of the award, Tostan will receive a three-year grant totaling $765,000 that will be used to further support community development efforts and extend the Tostan program to new communities in East and West Africa.

About the Skoll Foundation

The Skoll Foundation drives large-scale change by investing in, connecting, and celebrating social entrepreneurs and other innovators dedicated to solving the world’s most pressing problems. The Foundation defines social entrepreneurs as individuals dedicated to innovative, bottom-up solutions that transform unequal and unjust social, environmental, and economic systems. The Foundation believes that the work of such individuals has the potential to “reduce economic disparities, increase opportunities for the disadvantaged, promote healthy communities, and increase the interpersonal and intercultural understanding that is the foundation of world peace.”

The Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship is the Foundation’s flagship program. It supports individuals and organizations whose work has the potential to meaningfully impact the world’s most critical challenges, which the Skoll Foundation lists as “tolerance and human rights, health, economic and social equity, peace and security, institutional responsibility, and environmental sustainability.” The grant is given to help proven organizations scale up and expand, allowing them to further develop and implement their models for sustainable change.

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