Overcomers
July 6, 2020
There has been an upsurge in teenage pregnancies and incidents of women being cut when they go to give birth. Our girls come from a community that strongly believes in FGM as a rite of passage from childhood to adulthood.
Our Pokot Scholars have been active in their communities spreading the anti-FGM message. They have grown up in the same neighborhood as the girls they are communicating with, so the girls know the message being passed over to them is dear to our girls’ hearts.
Grace created flyers that our girls are now using to illustrate the dangers of FGM. These flyers, according to our Scholars, are attracting a lot of attention. Often a picture will bring a point home stronger than a story. It is said that a picture speaks a thousand word.
The pictures tell the story of our girls in a nutshell. They overcame great odds to become who they are today. In the fight against FGM, we always say if we can save the life of a single girl, that is a great achievement. The lives of the girls in the villages are usually filled with brokenness, terrible choices, and ugly truths. But these same lives can also be filled with a major comeback, peace in the soul, and a grace that can save a life. We do not only focus on the girls who are not cut, we also encourage the ones who have been cut to stand up, dust themselves off, and make something beautiful out of the broken pieces. The cut girls can rise. They can re-create themselves; nothing is permanent, they are not stuck, they have choices. They can think fresh thoughts, learn something new, create new habits. All that matters is that they forge forward and never look back.
Helping the girls who are in distress is always a blessing. Grace’s encouragement to our girls is that ‘there will always be a reason why you meet certain people. Either you need them to change your life, or you are the one who will change theirs.’
Below are pictures from the fliers that our girls are using to encourage the girls in their communities. We will also use the charts for our Choice Club lessons when schools resume.
A girl with tears running down her cheeks
as she is forced to face the knife.
An old man receiving a herd of cows and giving away
his young daughter for early marriage.
The girl runs to a Rescue Centre; she speaks about the risks
she faces. She is determined to say no to F.G.M and related atrocities.
At the Rescue Centre, she gets sponsored for school.
The girl finishes Secondary School. She graduates from college and goes back to her community to give back. She becomes a peer educator.