By Mahnaz M Harrison | Project leader
School holiday/closure in Kenya is considered “harvest” season for Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). During this time away from the sanctuary of school, students are home and vulnerable to being cut. It is the time when we need to kick into high gear to keep the girls in our cohorts safe from the pernicious maiming of FGM.
Schools closed early this year: right after the National Exams at the end of October 2023 and will only reopen mid-January 2024, which is a dangerously protracted time to have the girls out of school. To counter this problem, we operated anti-FGM camps twice a week to keep the girls safe and supercharged our educational survival sessions that empower them to resist FGM. We also included the boys in these camps as they are an integral long-term factor in ending FGM. We provided hot lunches and sanitary/dignity packages that included sanitary pads for the girls and briefs for the boys. We also provided toothbrushes, toothpaste, and soap to the children in addition to running the critically important education sessions. The reason we included these items is that it reinforced the message of the primacy of health.
The educational sessions were participatory, teaching and encouraging the children to roleplay in speaking up against FGM to those who might lure them to be cut. Children not only learned through these sessions but also found the sessions fun and empowering. In their roleplays some of the children played the role of parents and relatives determined to carry out cutting them, while others played the role of a girl or even a boy/brother. In these exercises the girls told the “parents and relatives” that if they are threatened with FGM they will call in the chief of police and other authorities. This is an impactful tact, since FGM is illegal in Kenya. The experience was amazing. See for yourself on our Instagram page https://www.instagram.com/lastmile4d/.
In total we brought 1,530 girls, 494 boys in 18 days and ran the camps in 18 schools. During this time, we also conducted 10 community sessions for the parents and other community stakeholders engaging 1,706 participants. We changed our approach in these meetings as well and made them much more participatory than in the past. We took our roleplays to the airwaves and broadcast them through our radio ads. Through this we exposed parents to the all-too real challenges they and their daughters face in this cutting season.
Send us a message at info@lastmile4d.org if you want to find out more about our work in Kenya.
It is only with your support that girls can continue to celebrate their liberation from FGM. On behalf of the girls dreaming of a better and healthier life, we ask you to continue supporting our efforts. Some of you have opted to be recurring donors, which brings us matching dollars from GlobalGiving. A million thanks from me, our team, and of course the girls, for supporting us.
Please follow us on Instagram @Lastmile4d and Twitter @LastMile_4d. Also, visit our website at www.lastmile4d.org to learn about our work and make contribution to us, directly during the year.
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