Projects
Health Promotion, Prevention and Protection
Combatting Practices that are Harmful to Health, including FGM/C
Transforming ex-circumcisers and their assistants into health mobilizers

Our engagement with circumcisers and their assistants was through continued social mobilization, advocacy and behavior change activities, resulting in the formation of BAFROW’s Association of Ex-circumcisers. The Association currently has 178 ex-circumcisers from the different administrative districts who have committed themselves to influence practising circumcisers to stop the cutting and advocate for the provision of better health and protection services to their communities.
Through annual training, ex-circumcisers were equipped with essential knowledge and skills for effective community mobilization, awareness creation and counselling on FGM/C and other harmful traditional practices. Some of the issues covered during these training were:

- Sexual and reproductive health and rights
- Environmental health
- HIV prevention
- Women’s and girls’ rights, and
- the linkages between all the above
These women were provided with interpersonal communication and advocacy skills to enhance their articulacy and pictorial IEC materials to support their activities.
An essential part of their work was to promote an alternative rites of passage for girls. As such, 50 converted circumcisers were trained on the use of BAFROW’s Curriculum for Alternative Rites of Passage of Girls (ŋansiŋ yaa karaŋo) to create awareness on and advocate for our “Initiation Without Mutilation” approach. Under their guidance, 150 girls from 6 villages participate in an Alternative Rites of Passage for Girls.
With the national ban on the practice in 2015, priorities for the project have since included awareness raising on applying the law as a means of dissuading underground and cross-border practices.