Saleema’s Henna: A new way to celebrate our
agreement that every girl born Saleema shall grow Saleema!
A long queue of
women from different backgrounds in the region waited patiently with tickled
faces to get their hand painted with Saleema’s new style of henna. They may have diverse views and beliefs on
life, but they are united to vigorously preserve every girl to be Saleema. The Saleema Initiative engages
the community in every detail of their daily life and embraces the colorful
Sudanese tobe as the National Saleema dress. Indeed, the
Saleema Regional Forum in Khartoum was a special gathering where all women celebrated
with their henna and tobe and sang loudly in one voice, “Every Girl is Born
Saleema, Let Every Girl Grow Saleema”.
Having henna is
a normal practice for married woman and although less common, unmarried women may
do it on special occasions. As the queue grew to have the Saleema henna design
applied, I became impressed with the pleasant contentment that the women shared
and my inquisitiveness encouraged me to approach one of them. I came close to
Hanaa Mohammed from Halfa in northern Sudan and asked why she was making henna. She laughed and said “I’m not married and I
never did henna before, but I was inspired by the collective choice of the
women to have Saleema’s Henna design applied”. Hanaa is a Saleema Initiative supporter in her state where the FGM/C rate is very high and community continues to cut their girls especially those who live in isolated villages. Hanaa said “I’m happy to see women come together on this day and I hope that they reach out to every community in Sudan.” She said it was a “marvelous and magnificent personal achievement when I persuaded my dad to listen to my advice. In my culture, the words of young people and women are less heard in the community.” She was challenged by many factors, but never gave up and now she is convinced that the Saleema movement will succeed.
Now Saleema Henna
has created a sense of belonging among community’s members. As we chatted about
the role of the Saleema supporter, Hanaa pauses to take a photo of her Saleema
Henna so she could share it with her sisters in Halfa. She hopes that the photo
will further motivate them to speak about Saleema in the village and wherever they
go. Hanaa says “Saleema Style Henna is from the community and it easy to follow
the tradition of henna. You see henna on the women’s hands in the public
transport, in the house and at family gatherings. You will see it everywhere.
Finally, with henna on her hands she raises her hands high and proudly affirms
“All my sisters are Saleema!”
Eman Eltigani
Eman Eltigani
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The Saleema
Initiative promotes positive values associated with protecting girls and women
in their natural God-given forms. Saleema
is an Arabic word that means whole,
healthy in body and mind, unharmed, intact, pristine, in a God-given condition
and perfect. The first key objective of the initiative is to model and
popularize use of the world “Saleema” itself as a positive terminology for
describing uncut girls and women. Using the word Saleema is an expression of
accepting the shift in the social norm. The Saleema Initiative marks also the
shift from a perspective of change as an individual process largely motivated
by developments in knowledge/attitudes to an understanding of change as
collective undertaking that requires structured opportunities for dialogue and
discussion.
