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April Newsletter

Highlights

  • UNFPA/The Global Media Campaign sign a new seven-nation FGM media campaign strategy to end FGM by 2030 
  • Media campaigns will be led by over 500 local activists/religious leaders and medics. 
  • UNFPA/GMC aims to reach over 180 million people with anti-FGM media messages in the next 12 months – accessing the media with Direct Action Media Grants. 

    The media program will also include the recruitment of new local anti-FGM activists via 12 virtual 5-day media academies, where activists, religious leaders, and journalists will come together to plan a media strategy to end FGM locally. 

It will also feature the design of a multilingual media hub with anti-FGM medical films in all the key local languages. The six countries that will be part of the UNFPA/GMC media push for 2022 will be The Gambia, Kenya,  Nigeria, Somalia, Ethiopia, and Mali.

“We will be able to reach local level campaigners with these direct Action Media Grants to ensure that they lead on the eradication of FGM in their own communities by 2030,”  said Mireille Tushiminina, Coordinator of the UNFPA/Unicef Joint Programme on FGM.

The Executive Director of the Global Media Campaign, Maggie O’Kane, said:  “UNFPA’s decision to get behind the hundreds of grassroots media activists out there is going to speed up  the eradication of FGM.”

NIGERIA 

UNFPA/GMC FGM media activist,  presenter and radio personality campaigning  on Crest FM 87.7.  Funmi Olagoroye is fronting some of the first media campaigns in Nigeria.  

ETHIOPIA

FGM is not part of our Religion – Islamic Leaders Speak Out in Ethiopia

GMC activist Shuceyb Obsiye,  congratulates religious leaders on their plans to draft a new FGM FATWA following two days of  round table for religious leaders, medics and the media, funded by Irish Aid. 

On May 12th the Global Media Campaign/Ifrah Foundation/Irish Aid will launch a radio and TV campaign to promote the FATWA ban, which will be officially announced by the Somali Islamic Affairs Council to mark the end of Ramadan across Ethiopia.

Sierra Leone 

GMC media activists in Sierra Leone are stepping up their FGM campaigns in May and June to engage influential Paramount Chiefs in ending FGM to mark the Day of African Child on June 16th.    

The new push comes as the President of Sierra Leone, Jukiys Maada Bio (above) told Sierra Leone’s first Town Hall Meeting that:  “ To ban FGM outright would be political  suicide.” 

Media activists are working on engaging the country’s Paramount Chiefs who are ready to speak out against FGM.  “The media campaigns have broken the taboo of silence on FGM but there is still a lot of work to be done to end this horror,” said Lucy-Ann Ganda of Sierra Leone TV.

Kenya

Watch TV journalists and media campaigner Robi Chacha Omondi’s moving TV news report featuring rare footage of girls being paraded after the cutting ceremonies.

Her film was aired on prime-time TV news on Kenya’s K24 TV, reaching over 1.4 million viewers.  Her film was funded by a UNFPA/ GMC Direct Action media grant.

To directly support activists working on the media to end FGM you can donate here 

Jeremiah Kipainoi

Kipainoi is Director of Communications at GMC, and is working with activists to effectively run their media campaigns to end FGM across FGM-Practicing regions in Africa. He is an award-winning multimedia journalist covering women's rights issues and has been published on the BBC, Deutsche Welle, The New York Times, among others. He hosts the End FGM Podcast and the End FGM Live, bringing together local and global stakeholders working at the End FGM. Personal website: www.kipainoi.com