Conference in Addis Ababa
TARGET presented "The Golden Book" on April 15 and 16, 2009 at the international scholars' conference "The Golden Book for East Africa" in Addis Ababa. TARGET had invited delegates from Ethiopia, Djibouti, Somaliland and Sudan together with the "Ethiopian Council for Islamic Affairs". After long, controversial and also very emotionally charged discussions, the 100 high-ranking religious representatives unanimously accepted "The Golden Book" as the basis for the awareness campaign.
Distribution
In September 2009, 50,000 "Golden Books" arrived in Addis Ababa. The Ethiopian Council's new request was to have the content translated into Amharic, Afaraf and Somali for the respective regions and printed as a supplement. The accompanying booklets have been printed since 2010. In June 2010, the "Ethiopian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs" assured TARGET in a position paper: "To make the campaign a success, we are committed to supporting the efforts in every conceivable way."
First sermons and their impact
The people of Ethiopia experienced the first sermon from the "Golden Book" on April 17, 2009 at Friday prayers in the Sheikh Shogolle Mosque in Addis Ababa. The premiere took place in the Afar village of Barachele on Friday, April 24, 2009.
The success did not fail to materialize: Mariam, a female mutilator in the Afar region, heard the message from the "Golden Book" and decided to give up her job immediately in order to campaign for the abolition of the custom together with other female colleagues from then on. Among the Afar, female mutilators are usually also midwives. They therefore know where girls are born. The goal of the former mutilators: No more girls should be mutilated because it is a sin. The women have recently started turning down mutilation requests from parents and instead explain the negative consequences of the practice. The mayor of the village is on their side. TARGET has also pledged its support. In September, after only ten weeks, we received Mariam's work report: 60 girls were saved from mutilation. The mothers swore by Allah not to mutilate their daughters and to have this checked at any time. Initiator Mariam was the first girl to save her granddaughter (!) from mutilation.
Backstory
Sheikh Darassa from the Afar people, now the second chairman of the Ethiopian Council, attended TARGET's conference at the Azhar in Cairo (Egypt) in November 2006. TARGET has had a strong ally in him since the first TARGET Desert Conference in 2002.