Participants in the program improved their village's hygiene situation by implementing rules that ensured good health practices. Female genital mutilation has been regarded as a right of passage into adulthood that has been a part of African culture for centuries. According to Unicef, approximately 100 million African girls and women have undergone the practice and 6,000 more undergo it each day. The government of Senegal has recently banned the practice of female genital mutilation nationwide. Individual and Group Finances Financial management skills have greatly improved the lives of the villagers.
Participants are now more successful running their small businesses.
Improvements have occurred because they can calculate profits and losses and maintain financial records on a daily, monthly, and yearly basis. Project Management Women in the program found use for the project management skills they learned in a variety of ways that affected their everyday lives. Because village children often crawled too close to the cooking fire and were burned by hot coals, the women used their project management skills to organize construction of a clay stove in every household. And as a result of discussions about the long distances women had to walk to find firewood, the villagers planted a small wood lot close to the village to ensure materials for their cooking fires in the years to come. A separate adolescent program is now in place.