Fatuma Abdulkadir Adan
After writing my previous blogpost about FGM, I stumbled across a related article about Fatuma Abdulkadir Adan, a lawyer and human rights activist from Marsabit (in northern Kenya). I began to read article after article and watch different videos that highlighted her bravery and passion for creating peace in her community, empowering women to fight for their rights, and end the taboo surrounding FGM.
Marsabit is a village torn apart by the conflict between three local tribes: the Borana, Gabra, and Rendile. As the daughter of a Gabra woman and a Borana man, she grew up between two different conflicting sides and understood the need for peace between all three of them. Northern Kenya is also notorious for forced marriage and the kidnapping of young women, and FGM is an extremely common practice that was done by around 100% of the people living in her community as she grew up (she herself underwent FGM). Since Fatuma's parents valued her education, they never forced her into marriage. However, that cannot be said for most of her classmates. Fatuma attended a girls' school that initially had 56 people. But, as she started grade 8, only 17 girls remained at the school; the rest had dropped out to get married.
All of the above formed that backdrop to Fatuma's childhood. These issues fueled her desire to become a lawyer in order to rectify and address all of the injustices and problems she grew up with. Through her hard work and determination and against all odds, she finally became a lawyer. She was working in Nairobi (Kenya's capital) in 2005 when she heard about a massacre in her village that resulted in 100 kids at a school being killed. She soon moved back to her home to hopefully address and minimize the conflict between the 3 different tribes.
Fatuma founded the Horn of Africa Development Initiative (HODI) in 2003 to promote peace and women's rights in the region. The slogan soon became "shoot to score, not to kill" and wanted to "replace bullets with football" (aka soccer balls to us Americans). Because of the gender inequality in the area, she herself was not allowed to play soccer until she was in her mid-20s (and even then, it took a lot of arguing to convince some of the local guys to include her in the game). But, she recognized the importance and power of the sport, so she stuck with it and wanted to allow all men and women in the area the opportunity to play the sport. HODI soon started offering soccer training to all of the locals and organizing tournaments for people of rival tribes.
Although Fatuma and HODI have been able to organize different soccer events for people of all genders, it was not easy. Many of the very conservative and religious mosques in the area threatened Fatuma and labeled her a witch. Also, after attending her first tournament with an all-female team, the entire team was kidnapped for marriage. Understandably, it took Fatuma 2 years to rebuild her courage and try again. And, thankfully, she did.
While Fatuma uses soccer to bring people from rival tribes together, she also uses it (and HODI) to tackle women's issues before they reach the courts. In her experience, having girls holler at their teammates to pass the ball has allowed them to express themselves more and stand up for themselves and their rights. And, after visiting one school to assess HODI's impact/effectiveness, one of the teachers said that not 1 girl in 3 years has dropped out of school to marry, which shows that Fatuma's hard work is paying off. However, there are still many major issues in her community that Fatuma wants to address, one of the main being FGM.
In one of the videos I watched, Fatuma said that many of the girls in her community (even some of the ones on her soccer teams) want to go through FGM, even knowing about all of the harmful and negative side effects that come with it, solely because of the social status that comes with it. Fatuma also said that even though basically every girl in the community undergoes the FGM procedure, it was/is very taboo to talk about it openly, which is what prompted Fatuma to create her Breaking the Silence program to end this taboo and create a safe space for girls to talk and learn about FGM. Other ways Fatuma has tried to address the high FGM rates in Marsabit is by trying to provide the women that do FGM (and for whom it is their only job/source of an income) with the training for alternative livelihoods. By providing them with new and different skills, they can start up other businesses (because before that, cutting was all they knew how to do).
Fatuma also has recognized the importance of including men and boys in the dialogue about gender equality and ending FGM. She has acknowledged that, in the end, these boys will most likely be the ones to marry the girls, so they need to be involved and educated about these topics as well. As a result, she tries to have boys and girls play on mixed teams to open up the dialogue between them.
I know this blogpost is pretty long, but I was just so moved and inspired by Fatuma's courage and resolve to address and hopefully fix the different issues that she grew up with. I find it very admirable and inspiring for her to leave Nairobi, where she was most likely making more money and living in a safer area than the conflict-torn community she grew up in, to fight inequality and try to end the conflict in Marsabit. And while I am unable to put into words how incredible of a person Fatuma is and how important her work is, I hope you have learned something new and have a new understanding of a different part of the world.
For more information about Fatuma, HODI, and all of her work:
- https://www.bbc.com/news/business-44553214?intlink_from_url=https://www.bbc.com/news/topics/c40rjmqdq5wt/fgm&link_location=live-reporting-story
- https://www.thegirlgeneration.org/fatuma-abdulkadir-adan
- http://global-peacebuilders.org/peacebuilders-2/fatuma-abdulkadir-adan-2/
- https://www.streetfootballworld.org/latest/blog/we-talk-fatuma-abdulkadir-adan
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BhSXp-KAMY
- https://www.hodiafrica.org/breaking-the-silence-around-fgm/#.W9YI6lMvyu5
- https://www.oneworldplayproject.com/our-social-impact/one-world-play-project-blog/giving-girls-voice-choice-marsabit/
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| Source: https://www.streetfootballworld.org/latest/blog/we-talk-fatuma-abdulkadir-adan |
All of the above formed that backdrop to Fatuma's childhood. These issues fueled her desire to become a lawyer in order to rectify and address all of the injustices and problems she grew up with. Through her hard work and determination and against all odds, she finally became a lawyer. She was working in Nairobi (Kenya's capital) in 2005 when she heard about a massacre in her village that resulted in 100 kids at a school being killed. She soon moved back to her home to hopefully address and minimize the conflict between the 3 different tribes.
Fatuma founded the Horn of Africa Development Initiative (HODI) in 2003 to promote peace and women's rights in the region. The slogan soon became "shoot to score, not to kill" and wanted to "replace bullets with football" (aka soccer balls to us Americans). Because of the gender inequality in the area, she herself was not allowed to play soccer until she was in her mid-20s (and even then, it took a lot of arguing to convince some of the local guys to include her in the game). But, she recognized the importance and power of the sport, so she stuck with it and wanted to allow all men and women in the area the opportunity to play the sport. HODI soon started offering soccer training to all of the locals and organizing tournaments for people of rival tribes.
Although Fatuma and HODI have been able to organize different soccer events for people of all genders, it was not easy. Many of the very conservative and religious mosques in the area threatened Fatuma and labeled her a witch. Also, after attending her first tournament with an all-female team, the entire team was kidnapped for marriage. Understandably, it took Fatuma 2 years to rebuild her courage and try again. And, thankfully, she did.
While Fatuma uses soccer to bring people from rival tribes together, she also uses it (and HODI) to tackle women's issues before they reach the courts. In her experience, having girls holler at their teammates to pass the ball has allowed them to express themselves more and stand up for themselves and their rights. And, after visiting one school to assess HODI's impact/effectiveness, one of the teachers said that not 1 girl in 3 years has dropped out of school to marry, which shows that Fatuma's hard work is paying off. However, there are still many major issues in her community that Fatuma wants to address, one of the main being FGM.
In one of the videos I watched, Fatuma said that many of the girls in her community (even some of the ones on her soccer teams) want to go through FGM, even knowing about all of the harmful and negative side effects that come with it, solely because of the social status that comes with it. Fatuma also said that even though basically every girl in the community undergoes the FGM procedure, it was/is very taboo to talk about it openly, which is what prompted Fatuma to create her Breaking the Silence program to end this taboo and create a safe space for girls to talk and learn about FGM. Other ways Fatuma has tried to address the high FGM rates in Marsabit is by trying to provide the women that do FGM (and for whom it is their only job/source of an income) with the training for alternative livelihoods. By providing them with new and different skills, they can start up other businesses (because before that, cutting was all they knew how to do).
Fatuma also has recognized the importance of including men and boys in the dialogue about gender equality and ending FGM. She has acknowledged that, in the end, these boys will most likely be the ones to marry the girls, so they need to be involved and educated about these topics as well. As a result, she tries to have boys and girls play on mixed teams to open up the dialogue between them.
I know this blogpost is pretty long, but I was just so moved and inspired by Fatuma's courage and resolve to address and hopefully fix the different issues that she grew up with. I find it very admirable and inspiring for her to leave Nairobi, where she was most likely making more money and living in a safer area than the conflict-torn community she grew up in, to fight inequality and try to end the conflict in Marsabit. And while I am unable to put into words how incredible of a person Fatuma is and how important her work is, I hope you have learned something new and have a new understanding of a different part of the world.
For more information about Fatuma, HODI, and all of her work:
- https://www.bbc.com/news/business-44553214?intlink_from_url=https://www.bbc.com/news/topics/c40rjmqdq5wt/fgm&link_location=live-reporting-story
- https://www.thegirlgeneration.org/fatuma-abdulkadir-adan
- http://global-peacebuilders.org/peacebuilders-2/fatuma-abdulkadir-adan-2/
- https://www.streetfootballworld.org/latest/blog/we-talk-fatuma-abdulkadir-adan
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BhSXp-KAMY
- https://www.hodiafrica.org/breaking-the-silence-around-fgm/#.W9YI6lMvyu5
- https://www.oneworldplayproject.com/our-social-impact/one-world-play-project-blog/giving-girls-voice-choice-marsabit/
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