Read the full Caravan concept note here in English and in French.
Thousands of women will join forces this summer to campaign against female genital mutilation, travelling 12,000km through 20 countries across Africa.
This mobile campaign will travel from Mauritania in West Africa to Djibouti in the East over the next two years, working to persuade local communities across the continent to end this outrageous practice against girls and young women.
The ambitious coast-to-coast initiative will be mobilised by #FrontineEndingFGM, the world’s largest organisation of grassroots women’s rights groups fighting against female genital mutilation. FGM can lead to life-threatening infections, horrendous difficulties in sexual relations and in conceiving, and terrible complications in childbirth.
Mauritania, Djibouti and many of the countries the Caravan will pass through have mutilation rates of over 90 per cent. Overall, 4.4 million girls and young women across the world are at risk of FGM.
Sadia Hussain, Executive Director of Brighter Society Initiative, Kenya: “We are driving down the rates faster than anyone else using these tactics. Yet less than 2% of donor funding is reaching us. #FrontlineEndingFGM is changing that.”
#FrontlineEndingFGM brings together over 1,000 frontline women’s rights organisations and activists. Most are led by survivors of FGM based on the ground. They work directly with local religious leaders – who have enormous influence in their communities – to spread the message against FGM using local media.
Ayo Bello, co-founder of #FrontlineEndingFGM in Nigeria, coordinating the Caravan there, says: “It is time for the survivor-led local organisations across Africa to step up and take the lead on ending FGM. We know how to end this, and we have results to prove it.“
Maggie O’Kane, Executive Director of the Global Media Campaign to End FGM: “The aim of the #FrontlineEndingFGM Born Perfect Caravan is to focus the eyes and the funding of the donors everywhere on the hundreds of local women-led organisations who are actually ending FGM across Africa.”
To donate to support the Caravan, please visit The Global Media Campaign to End FGM’s website here.
For interviews about the survivor-led Born Perfect Caravan and the #EndFGM Localisation Service to mark Zero Tolerance Day, please contact:
Maggie O’Kane
For interviews in English: +4477696406845 maggie@globalmediacampaign.org
Lea Blanc
For interviews in French: +44 7398 642616 lea@globalmediacampaign.org
Fatou Binetou Diop +221 77 569 50 89 fatou@globalmediacampaign.org
Ifrah Ahmed
For interviews in Somalia: +252 61 7349455 ifrah@ifrahfoundation.org
Sadia Hussein
For interviews in Kenya: +254 726 772395
Ayo Bello
For interviews in Nigeria: +234 816 895 3085 ayo@globalmediacampaign.org
Rugiatu Turay
For interviews in Sierra Leone: +232 76 738517 nenehturay@gmail.com
