Narok Girls who forcefully underwent FGM graduate after being trained on dealing with related trauma » Capital News

NAROK, Kenya Apr 9 – About 20 girls drawn from the pastoral Maasai community in Narok County who survived Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) have graduated after undergoing training on how to avoid trauma occasioned by the female cut.

The workshop dubbed ‘scars to stars emotional wellbeing project’ was organized by USAID and AfyaAfrica non-governmental organizations and brought together the Maa women professionals and role models who mentored the young girls to keep from stress despite the nasty experience they underwent while undergoing the cut.

Narok Education and Gender County Executive Member Ms. Cicilia Wepali asked the girls to bury their past and concentrate on what builds them so that they can make a bright future.

“Be focused, never feel like you are neglected or you did a wrong thing, or you don’t know why such things befell of you. Be a woman who can be embraced by the community by being a mentor to other girls who are undergoing stress because of FGM,” she said.

Ms. Wepali told the girls that success comes when one convinces herself that she is a strong woman and can be a professional like any other woman who has made it in life.

AfyaAfrica executive director Catherine Mootian said the training was meant to give the young girls an opportunity to heal and live a normal life like any other girl in the community.

She said the training was initiated after concerns that many girls in the society were suffering in silence because of the impact of FGM that hindered them from achieving their goals in life.

“We have been concentrating on asking girls not to undergo the cut. But what happens to those who have already undergone the cut and are traumatized?” wondered Ms. Mootian.

She observed that about 78 percent of girls in the Maa community have undergone the cut according to statistics with the department of gender.

One of the beneficiaries Ms. Gladys Naeku, 18, from Suswa area in Narok East Sub County recounted the trauma she experienced when she underwent the cut when she was only 13 years old.

She recalled that immediately after the cut, she was married off to an elderly man who mistreated her but thank God for AfyaAfrica who rescued her and gave her a chance to join college.

President Uhuru Kenyatta committed to end the retrogressive cultural practice by the end of this year.