Grassroots Democracy In Action-Senegal

Tostan News reports on the evolution of local democracy, "...Respondents very much wanted to expand on the issue of human rights and to examine the conditions, even the kind of society, in which these could be more durably ensured. The term “democracy” surfaced on a number of occasions, overheard from national political discourse, but no one was too sure exactly what it meant. Staff resolved therefore to try out a training sequence that would use “democracy” as a cover term for the kind of social arrangements under which human rights could be effectively guaranteed and people of all groups and ages could play an active role in determining their own destiny. The module that resulted from these months of effort included information, discussion, role-playing and applied activities all focusing on what human rights society must protect, how individual and group values are balanced, by what means those who have been deprived of rights can assert them, how conflict is healed, and the sort of governance strategies such goals require. Organizers found it worthwhile to go back to the root meaning of “democracy” (in Greek: government by the people) and to facilitate widespread discussion of just what this implied and how it related to the assertion of human rights and the resolution of conflict..."