Soroptimist International is delighted to announce its first collaboration on The Road to Equality, the SI President’s Appeal, 2019-2021. Working with the highly influential Global Media Campaign to End FGM, SI Road to Equality is to support the Soroptimist Six, inspired and determined women activists making a difference in their own countries, to bring Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) to an end.
In Africa, Global Media Campaign (GMC) work with local activists who know best how to mobilise to transform norms and mindsets within their communities, helping them to access funds to support their work, particularly within the media, to end FGM, and violence against women and girls.
Through its renowned media academies, GMC trains and empowers FGM advocates, educating them in the use of the latest technologies so they may be more effective in getting their message out, and increasing awareness of how FGM destroys lives. Through national events, GMC brings together survivors, activists, leaders, and journalists to witness first-hand how FGM impacts the lives of women and girls. Graduates of the media programme go on to create their own powerful messages – specific and relevant to their regions and networks – giving them the capacity to open up space for real conversation, and real change.
With your help, The SI Road to Equality is to provide Direct Action Grants to fund six graduates in their fight against FGM. Your donations will empower the Soroptimist Six with the valuable tools and opportunities needed to gain airtime on radio and television, to accelerate and maximise their message, so that they may become a voice for the voiceless, and drive the campaign against FGM forward.
Photo: Your Soroptimist Six!
Maggie O’Kane, Executive Director of the Global Media Campaign to End FGM, and former award-winning foreign correspondent for the Guardian newspaper says: “We are genuinely excited about the Soroptimist Six being backed by Soroptimist International and the membership around the world. This is the epitome of female solidarity tackling one of the greatest feminist issues of our time…the mutilation of women. It is the Soroptimist sisters standing up for their mutilated sisters and their daughters. What a call to action”.
SI and GMC will be introducing each of the Soroptimist Six over the course of the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-based Violence which runs from 25 November to 10 December.
Follow @SoroptiTweet to find out more.
For information on the SI President’s Appeal please email SI President’s Appeal Coordinator, Ayushi Kundu
#SIRoadtoEquality #ENDFGM
To donate to the SI Road to Equality President’s Appeal please do so through your own SI Federations.
Soroptimist International of Great Britain HERE
Soroptimist International of the South West Pacific HERE
Soroptimist International of Europe HERE
Soroptimist International of the Americas HERE
Images courtesy of Louis Leeson.