YesWeCan
for Children Foundation recently organized a daylong workshop to sensitise the
community of Touba Kuta in ending the practice of Female Genital Mutilation
(FGM).
FGM
is everyone’s issue, and each of us could play a role in creating a world that
is safe for girls. “Yes we can end FGM.”
Speaking
at the workshop, Essa Jallow, the executive director of Yeswecan for Children
Foundation, said the workshop was about sensitising the community of Tuba Kuta
on FGM so that at the end of the day they would participate in ending the
practice.
According
to Jallow, their intention was to engage them into dialogue so that they would
relate the message and to start questioning their own belief.
“We
believe that FGM is every one’s issue and our girls deserve to be educated so
that their rights will not be violated,” he explained.
He
said the participants participated well as FGM is a very sensitive issue,
adding that some communities are still conservative; they want to still
continue despite lot of efforts being made by other sister institutions in the
work to end FGM.
He
pointed out that even though the law is in place, people are still practicing
FGM, adding that they already have had series of radio programmes with FMB
radio and other radios.
“You
cannot stop it at once; it takes time but at least we were able to reach few
communities to reduce the percentage of practicing FGM,” he stated
He
said they normally make a survey by calling a focal person, who they identify
to gather information about some of the villages.
They
then decided to gather these communities to engage them into discussion and
debate with them about the issues on FGM.
“You
cannot convince all but we were able to convince few of the masses,” he noted.
Fatou
Njie, a participant said they were very happy about the programme because they
have learned a lot concerning FGM.
“First
time we thought people were just fooling us but we came to realise that FGM is
a very bad thing which is affecting our society,” she agreed.
She
admitted that they used to take their girl child for circumcision but they have
now known that, that was causing harm to their children, and they have decided
to abandon it.
Bubacarr
Kambi, also a participant said he has learned a lot about in the programme,
adding that before he was not interested in such programmes but that was a
great lesson for him.
