The so-called Behaviour Change Activities (BCA) are activities targeting African diaspora communities from countries with a high FGM prevalence rate. These activities are organised by the CHANGE Agents and aim at raising awareness, changing attitudes and promoting behaviour change towards the abandonment of FGM in practising communities. Every CHANGE Agent is free to decide on the type of activity she or he wants to implement. They can organise film screenings and panel discussions to raise awareness among a bigger group of persons, or initiate more intimate discussions within specific groups, e.g. young mothers or religious leaders.
However, the project partners will support the CHANGE Agents at all times: When they are first designing and planning the activities, while they are implementing and finally evaluating them.
To get a clearer idea of what a BCA might look like, check out previous CHANGE Agents’ reports.
On September 25th 2017 Mai Shutta held her second BCA at the Refugee café Karanfil in Berlin Neukölln. She organized an info event with the title: Violence against women, FGM. She invited affected women and people who want to come in solidarity to get information and awareness on FGM. During a presentation Mai informed the guests about the different procedures of FGM and about their meaning and their consequences in our lives, bodies and minds.
On September 16th 2017, our Change Agent Evariste Franz Kapnang organised his last community activity towards overcoming Female Genital Mutilation in the Cameroonian community. This time he invited only men to introduce the topic of FGM and to get in a discussion and exchange experiences and ideas. There was a very fruitful exchange. They discussed all the topics related to FGM and afterwards the men showed great interest in engaging in the fight against FGM and offered their support to Evariste. Trough Evaristes BCA we possibly won two new supporters, who are willing to exchange ideas with us.
CHANGE Agent Colette Tchombou’s last BCA took place in Berlin Zehlendorf on August 12th. She took advantage of the nice summer weather and organized a barbecue evening. Colette started to talk about the topic female genital mutilation, explained the consequences and showed some pictures to explain the different types. During the evening a lively conversation developed and many questions arose. A lot of the people present weren’t aware that FGM exists and stunned that it is also a problem in Europe. The discussion led to the desire to get more information about FGM and to get in exchange with more people about it. This led to another spontaneous meeting on the 13th August in Berlin Wedding, which was pushed by guests present on Saturday evening. After another fruitful discussion the guests decided to share what they had learned with other people and expressed the wish that Colette should return and talk about the topic again.
On Sunday, 25th of of June, the day of the end of Ramadan, CHANGE agent Tiranke Diallo form Guinea of the Mama Africa Association togehter with Senegalese FGM activist and urban soul and hip hop singer Fatou Diatta „Sister Fa“ raised awareness on FGM. On the occasion of Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan, Sister Fa invited the Westafrican community to her house. Sister Fa and Tiranke Diallo seized the opportunity to talk about FGM and the risks for women and girls with their guests to encourage discussions about the topic.