Anti-FGM Board launches arts initiative to fight vice in Kuria

The Anti-FGM Board has partnered with a local community-based organisation (CBO) in the Kuria, to bolster anti-FGM fight through arts and culture.

The programme dubbed ‘Arts to End FGM by Children’ seeks to incorporate young girls, the main targets of the retrogressive cultural practice, in scaling down the vice through creative arts.

The programme, done in partnership with Safe Engage, seeks to use children’s arts and creativity to send anti-FGM messages.

Director of Safe Engage Foundation Christine Ghati, said the infusion of arts in the anti-FGM fight has seen the culture gradually diminish as young girls “were opening up and taking personal responsibilities in spreading the anti-FGM messages.” 

Scaled down

“Through this initiative, girls reach out to their peers and spread the message. This has helped in creating awareness that has seen the vice scaled down,” she noted during the launch of the initiative in Kehancha over the weekend.

The programme also ensures girls are exposed to safe spaces early enough, making it easier for them to secure shelter at the peak of FGM.

During the March-April holidays, no case of FGM was reported, bringing to fruition stakeholders’ concerted efforts in combating the practice. 

“We feel children are left behind even as we try to eradicate this vice. And that is the reason why we are engaging them to use their creativity in arts to pass messages that foster the anti-FGM fight,” she stated.

“This program further ensures that moral values are inculcated in the children at a tender age, deterring them from embracing the exercise.”

Anti-FGM Board programmes manager Nyerere Kutwa, said involving children and art in fighting the vice is an avenue that has not been fully exploited, hence, the initiative breathes new life into the campaign to end it.

“The artistic performance demonstrated by the minors will further spread the messages of eradicating the vice,” Mr Kutwa noted.

Safety

Kuria West Sub-county Children’s Officer James Omondi, said his office is keen on conducting more advocacy for the children.

“We will engage with other organizations to champion for the safety of children in the region, especially against vices like FGM,” said Mr Omondi.

Data by Tunaweza Empowerment, another local CBO, indicates that more than100 girls were sheltered during the April holidays.

“It is through joint efforts that these girls can safely resume learning without fear. We have ensured their safety during the holidays after word went round that there were plans to undertake FGM in the region,” said Vincene Mwita of Tunaweza Empowerment.

Elsewhere, men from the Kuria community have, for the second time, been sensitized to scale up anti-FGM fight.

The second cohort who have been on a three-day sensitization programme in Isebania town under the theme 'Men End FGM', vowed to end the vice.

“We have been trained on the effects of FGM and have resolved to be in the forefront in taming the vice,” Marwa Matiko, one of the participants told nation.africa at a hotel in Isebania where the training took place.

Charles Olwamba, an official with Amref who led the training, said men were in the forefront of scaling down the practice.

“We have chosen to train them owing to the high influence they wield in in the community. They are the gatekeepers and if they say no to the cut, then FGM will cease,” Mr Olwamba noted.

He said that together with other Anti-FGM stakeholders, they have tasked the trained men to pass the information in their barazas and homesteads.

The head of programmes at Men End FGM Foundation, Peter Kemei, said men’s voices are crucial to ending FGM, noting that they are leaders and should act as role models through grassroots advocacy forums.

He noted that anti-FGM crusaders were keen to end the practice in line with President Uhuru Kenyatta’s decree that sought to end the practice by 2022.

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