Some 250 young Maasai girls were yesterday attained womanhood in a traditional rite of passage that was conducted at Saunyi Village, in Tanzania, without undergoing Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).
The ceremony, which was held as part of the implementation the Alternative Rite of Passage (ARP) being implemented by Amref Health Africa, was the third such to be conducted under the project in Kilindi District. The ceremony was also attended by a Kenyan Amref delegation led by the ARP project Director, Mr Peter Ngutia. A total of 810 girls have gone through the ARP programme since the project started in Kilindi in 2013. The project targets to reach 1,000 girls by the end of December this year. According to the Amref Health Africa’s Kilindi Office Manager Eliya Msegu, the rite of passage from girl to womanhood is a very important stage in the Maasai community. He said, although the ceremony was a beautiful ritual with spectacular songs and dance where mothers give the girls life lessons in privacy, previously it was followed by female genital cutting.
“The project is implemented in Kenya and Uganda with the support from the Dutch government’s ministry of Foreign Affairs thought Amref Netherlands,” he pointed out.
The fight against FGM, Mr Msegu explained, was rolled out by Amref’s Unite for Body Rights (UFBR) programme through a campaign dubbed the Alternative Rite of Passage (ARP) in 2009.
Amref’s goal is to enable communities find the solutions to their own health related problems, thus making the community the heart of Amref’s work, he said.
Through capacity building, advocacy and research, he pointed out, Amref learnt that eradicating FGM, needed the involvement of the whole community, especially the cultural elders, who in most traditional groups are the decision makers.
