The initiative has continued to spread. On the heels of the meetings in the Casamance, women in the St. Louis region of Senegal are now preparing for an inter-village convocation of their own, to be held in February 1999. Issues Cultural roots . Although French is Senegal's official language, the government has increasingly encouraged the use of national languages in literacy programs, recognizing that learning is easier and more effective in the affective domain of one's own tongue and is likely to facilitate the transition to international languages. As well, it eliminates the dissonance that children educated solely in French often feel within the village household, thereby facilitating intergenerational communication and solidarity.
Problem solving is the program's backbone and provides a strong motivator for literacy acquisition.
Curricular modules were based on the stories, proverbs, songs, and cultural traditions of each place gathered by traveling from village to village, listening and recording the oral tradition. The instructional method maintains a participatory approach and learners often involve their family and the community in the process of problem-solving. With a female illiteracy rate in 1990 of 74.9 percent, women are the least-educated group in Senegal. Process of developing approaches Besides the participatory processes mentioned, learners were also involved in the development of the contents of the program through a method of testing, dialogue and feedback. This was costly at the start but ultimately proved cost-effective due to the success rate of adaptation by other NGOs.