Partners of Change provides long-term protection for Kenyan girls against female genital mutilation – you can help too!

Ending female genital mutilation is a key priority that numerous organisations, such as “Partners of Change”, have made their mission. This organisation works globally to raise awareness of the harmful effects of this practice and to offer support to affected women and girls. Through education, awareness-raising and the development of local networks, the organisation works to challenge cultural norms and promote long-term change within communities. The involvement of local partners and close collaboration with affected families are crucial to laying the foundations for sustainable solutions and protecting women’s rights.

You can support our work by becoming an active member or making a donation. We are grateful for every contribution, 100% of which goes towards our work on the ground.

Partners of Change – Working together to bring an end to female genital mutilation

Partners of Change e.V. stands alongside girls whose protection changes everything. Together with the Kenyan project Mosocho Enka Enyia, the organization has been supporting profound change in rural regions of Kenya for many years. Where fear and pain once shaped everyday life, knowledge, respect, and responsibility are now taking root. Through awareness-raising, education, and strong community solidarity, a future is emerging in which girls can grow up unharmed — supported by their families, villages, and a strong partnership for dignity and equality.

The Value-Centred Approach

At the heart of the work is the Value-Centered Approach, implemented by Kenyan women and men in rural communities. It promotes awareness, education, and respect as the foundation for long-term change.

Elements of the value-centred approach

Seminars · Dialogue and Participation · Training Courses · Celebrations
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• Seminars – Education is the key to sustainable protection. Mosocho Enka Enyia trains dedicated facilitators who teach children and parents about the importance of a healthy and unharmed body. Teachers in particular are targeted so that they can bring the values-centred approach into schools. In addition, many parents and grandparents are getting involved, keen to play an active role in strengthening peace and mutual respect within families and village communities.
  The seminars tackle the root causes head-on: they combat gender-based violence and provide long-term protection for girls against female genital mutilation. This fosters change from within – driven by people from the communities themselves.

• Dialogue and participation – Sustainable change happens where people are involved. Mosocho Enka Enyia works closely with local communities, traditional leaders, schools and women’s groups to raise awareness and build trust. Together, they are working towards a cultural shift in which girls and women are recognised as equal members of the community who deserve protection.
  In the villages, local leaders call on parents to take part in the training sessions during village meetings. These are run every year from April to December by specially trained facilitators. In this way, change is initiated directly where it is most urgently needed – within the families and village communities themselves.

• Training sessions – knowledge promotes protection and dignity. Through interactive training sessions, Mosocho Enka Enyia imparts fundamental knowledge on sexual and reproductive health, human rights and gender equality. The programmes are specifically aimed at the girls’ mothers and fathers. This represents a major cultural step, as many parents initially feel a sense of shame when it comes to depictions and names of sexual organs. To create a safe space, mothers and fathers are trained separately.
  Step by step, they explore these topics, using drawings to understand how the organs work and to learn their names. By the end of the training sessions, parents are well-informed and recognise not only the value of the body, but also its inviolability and dignity. The programme emphasises that the bodies of girls and women are just as worthy of protection as those of boys and men, and that they deserve the same respect.
  Complementary training sessions are held for boys and young men. They, too, learn to respect the value of an intact body and to take responsibility for protecting girls. In this way, a shared understanding of values within the community is strengthened.
  The training sessions take place on several occasions throughout the year and focus on fostering a lasting, self-driven shift in mindset within families. The girls themselves also take part in the training: they learn to appreciate the value of their bodies and are empowered in their self-confidence and in their role as equal members of the community. This gives rise to new values that protect girls in the long term and enable them to be accepted into the community without harm.

• Celebrations – A celebration to protect girls. Instead of undergoing female genital mutilation, young girls are welcomed into the community in a festive ceremony, unharmed. These so-called Celebrations are public ceremonies at which families and the whole village come together and make a joint pledge: that the girls will grow up protected. Accompanied by singing and dancing, they make a festive entrance wearing yellow T-shirts and are presented with a certificate in which their mother and father confirm in writing that their daughter will remain unharmed.
  The celebrations are deliberately organised by the whole village. Local leaders give speeches, and the girls themselves take the floor to emphasise that their bodies belong to them and must be protected. Grandmothers take on a special role as guardians of this promise, singing traditional songs and dancing. Loud music, powered by an amplifier running on a car battery, carries the message to every corner of the village and invites everyone to join in the celebrations.
  The Celebrations take place every year in early December – exactly the time of year when girls used to be circumcised. Today, instead, joy, pride and a sense of community are on display. Even older girls who have already been circumcised are invited and act as mentors to an uncircumcised girl. The girls taking part in the Celebrations are aged between five and twelve – the very age at which they used to be subjected to violence. The approach has a lasting impact because the entire village community takes responsibility and actively ensures that the promise is kept. It is a celebration of unbridled joy and a powerful symbol of change in action.

• A holistic approach – seminars, dialogue and participation, training sessions and festive celebrations are deliberately designed to build on one another. They are interlinked and ensure that knowledge, attitudes and a sense of shared responsibility grow in a sustainable way. Step by step, this brings about a transformation that protects girls and is supported by the entire village community. This holistic approach is made possible by the financial support of Partners of Change e.V., which promotes and safeguards this work in rural regions in the long term.

Female genital mutilation

The Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ): “Female genital mutilation, commonly referred to internationally as ‘FGM’, encompasses all procedures in which the external female genitalia are partially or completely removed or otherwise injured for non-medical reasons. Female genital mutilation is practised in more than 30 countries.
According to estimates by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), at least 230 million women and girls are currently living with the consequences of female genital mutilation. Every year, a further three million girls are at risk.”

Our mission

The 2010 UNICEF report “The Dynamics of Social Change” lists the Fulda-Mosocho Project as one of the world’s most successful prevention campaigns against female genital mutilation. The project, initiated by women in Fulda under the leadership of Prof. Dr Muthgard Hinkelmann-Toewe, was launched in the Mosocho region of Kenya, south of Lake Victoria. The Kisii are an ethnic group in which, at the start of the project, 98% of girls had been mutilated.

The project began in 2000, and by December 2004, 2,000 uncircumcised girls had gathered in a stadium and were officially welcomed as full members of the Kisii community, receiving a certificate and a yellow T-shirt.

Today, 80% of young girls in the Mosocho region are protected; in the neighbouring regions of Kisii South and Marani, the rate of female genital mutilation is also set to be reduced, with Mosocho serving as a model.

Well-trained local staff ensure that seminars are held in the regions for decision-makers and that alternative coming-of-age ceremonies are organised for the girls. December, formerly the month of female genital mutilation, is now the month in which young girls receive a certificate confirming their physical integrity. The whole endeavour can only succeed if key male decision-makers are on board and committed to safeguarding the girls’ physical integrity.

The UNICEF report “The Dynamics of Social Change” 2010 (PDF) is available to download here (pages 45–49).

We have already achieved this

Did you know?

In the song "Malaika", the young men of Kisii ask their fathers if they may marry women with clitorises; at the end of the song-dialogue, the fathers happily give their consent.