Feed the Minds: How your help can end FGM

Cameron Merry, Fundraising Manager, Feed the Minds

THE World Health Organisation estimates that over 200 million women and girls alive today have undergone Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). They also estimate that 3 million women and girls are at risk of FGM every year. 

FGM has no health benefits for women and girls. But there are many dangers, including difficulty urinating, infections, complications in pregnancy and even death. Most cases of FGM are carried out on young girls between infancy and 15 years old. 

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

We know that by raising awareness of the dangers of FGM, delivering awareness campaigns in schools and within communities and by engaging community and religious leaders, change can happen. 

We recently delivered a project to raise awareness of the dangers of FGM in Nigeria, alongside our project partner Society for the Improvement of Rural People (SIRP). You can read more about our work with SIRP here. 

Patience, a SIRP project participant, had previously undergone FGM when she was young. She told us: 

“It was painful and depressing. Life has been very meaningless as my marriage is so flat and giving birth has been a nightmare.”

Perpetual, who also participated in the SIRP project told us:

“After the training, I came home and took time to think about it. This enabled me to conclude that FGM is a very evil thing.

We all need to come together and fight this practice. Though I had opposed FGM on my children, it wasn’t until I went through the training that I understood why FGM destroys women. We need to talk to women, men, and the community that when God created women, he never included any defects to be corrected by a knife or Vaseline. We just need to stop it.”

But to stop FGM, we need your help.

This Christmas we are taking part in the Big Give Christmas Challenge. The challenge will run until noon on 6 December and any donations, up to a total of £2000, received during this week will be matched. One donation, twice the impact.

All the money raised through this challenge will support our ‘Using Literacy to end FGM’ project in Nigeria, which will raise awareness of the dangers of FGM amongst the community and religious leaders, students, and healthcare professionals. We will also work with expectant mothers on the dangers of FGM to their children and why FGM should be avoided.

You can support our Big Give campaign in a number of ways:

Make a donation: You can donate to our appeal during the Big Give week which takes place until 6 December. Every donation is being matched so a £5 donation is worth £10 during this week. To donate click here.

Organise an event: Could you organise an event in the lead-up or during the Big Give campaign week? It could be a cake sale, coffee morning or dress-down day at the office, every penny raised will help us end FGM. Email together@feedtheminds.org to let us know about your event and we will be in touch to support you every step of the way.

Make an introduction: One of the easiest ways to support us is to introduce us to people you know who may be interested in supporting our work. This could be your local church, your place of work, or your local community group.

Share our social media: We love talking about our projects on social media. You can support our work by giving us a follow and sharing what we post with your networks.

Feed the Minds would like to thank all of our generous pledgers and the Human Rights Fund who make up our match fund pot.