However Long the Night

By Aimee Molloy

Categories: Biographies & Memoirs, Politics & Social Sciences

In However Long the Night (2015), writer Aimee Molloy tells the story of Molly Melching, an American who went to Senegal as a student in 1974 and stayed, founding the non-profit organisation Tostan. Molloy describes how Tostan's community-led education programme, taught in local languages and centred on human rights, led villagers to debate and publicly abandon female genital cutting and child marriage. The movement spread from one village to thousands across West Africa.

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• Melinda French Gates: “I've had the honor of meeting several entrepreneurial Senegalese women who lifted their families out of poverty thanks, in part, to Molly Melching's work.”