News from our work for the girls in Guinea-Bissau

Regional expansion of the awareness campaign, a poetry competition, a poster campaign in schools, campaigns on national radio stations and much more. - creative actions for an end to female genital mutilation in Guinea-Bissau

"The end of childhood begins for the girls of Guinea-Bissau at the hands of the fanatecas."

In a secret initiation rite lasting several days, they prepare the girls for their future role as wives. At the end of these days, they are genitally mutilated. TARGET's goal is to end the millennia-old tradition of female genital mutilation (FGM), known here in the country as fanado di mindjer. This requires a lot of patience. We have been active in Guinea-Bissau for many years in awareness campaigns with mobile teams. These are always accompanied by an imam.

Since the report in the 2023 Annual Letter, the teams have continued to prioritize visits to the communities in the regions of Bafatá, Oio and Gabu, which continue to be hesitant to reject the abandonment of FGM. "Constant dripping wears away the stone" - our approach follows this principle and always leads to success, even if the effort required to get there is great.

A brief overview of news from the last 12 months:

• Optimizing the activities of our many multipliers with a 3-step path;
• Poem by a poet from Guinea-Bissau for the International Day to End FGM;
• FGM poster campaign in schools; training of further multipliers;
• Start of awareness campaigns in two new regions;
• Use of the symbolic font Adinkra;
• Continuation of the FGM radio campaign;

Find out more about each of these topics in our Annual Letter 2024 from page 10 - with lots of photos.