Saleema InitiativeforCommunication
The Beginnings
From where did the idea of Saleema Initiative come
and how it turned into a reality??
Dr. Samira Amin Ahmed
Saleema initiative is a local initiative for
communication and reaching out about a sensitive topic that has occupied the
minds of people with ongoing work thereon for decades and it has acquired a lot
of experience that benefited so many people. Before going to the whole issue, I
would like to say that Saleema aims to open new areas and dialogues for
discussion and communication to talk about something well known to many
families, the society and friends about the march of the life of any young lady
or girl in Sudan.
The issue sums up in how the Sudanese people would
initiate a new debate around how the girl should be left without being affected
by the female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) i.e. the girls circumcision
and since the matter took so long before being put forward in the media, but
Saleema however, has taken a wide area in the communication and opened up new
questions that rendered it important to tell Saleema story in the Sudan and how
all the activities were successful in education, training and raising awareness
in the villages besides, too many to mention, studies and researches were
conducted, thus we nonetheless must thank those who have ceaselessly worked and
are still working since the nineteen-forties in nonstop activities that are
still ongoing in Sudan.
The important questions remain on:
Why the female circumcision
habit is still ongoing in high rate in Sudan?
Why noteworthy national
information and special or case studies necessitate insistent response?
It was necessary to review
the work methods and approaches in Sudan and get the community involved to
stand on all the problems and the lifelong harm the circumcised girl sustained
with no result reflecting on the rates of practicing female circumcision?
There is still a rate of no
less than 80% being repeated every 5 years in surveys and official statistics
of the age group 15-49 years, but the most important question is: Is there any
change in the lack of awareness of the practice of female genital mutilation/
cutting (FMG/C) in the age group of 15-49 years?
According to the National Household Health Survey,
the trends of the people's awareness began to improve, whereas the answer of
the mothers asked whether they intend to circumcise their daughters or not was
no. Although there is a gap between the level of knowledge and the improvement
in trends and the actual practice, but there may come an historic moment in the
decline of such practices and there will be a better future for those.
In the year 2002, there was a strategy with the
Ministry of Health addressing all the efforts to work together in a national
program to reduce the harmful habit, promote healthy practices, improve
knowledge and raise health awareness and provide the people with the
information leading to a decline in the girls' circumcision practice. By the
end of the strategy and in the light of the results of the National Household
Health Survey in the Year 2006, it was difficult to measure the change in
comparison with the previous studies for the engagement of the essential age
group with the no reduction of the rate of circumcision, whereas the results of
the survey showed a decline in the rate among the age group of 0-50 years, but
there was no statistics to measure the shift or change.
A Personal Experience: A Review of the Negative
Messages' Impact
I personally used one of the movies of female
circumcision in both ways; the so-called (Sunnah i.e. Islamic and Pharaonic) in
different sessions with specific groups. It led in some cases to fainting of
some of the audience as the movie was actually shocking because it photographs
the complete circumcision operation, which was by large unknown to the viewers.
Therefore, new approaches must be invented and reconsider the present ones with
the creation of a space for communication and reaching out, though I do not
here refer to the radio and TV but I mean the everyday talk (among the ordinary
people). The previous messages were sent from experts, which are considered
readymade messages that are expressed and talk about in a shocking way in the
form of blood and razors. These messages are in general negative messages that
have lowered the practice but not in the desired rates.
Here new insights and visions started calling for
acceleration to get the community talk in a different way. The search led, at this stage, to seeking the
assistance of experts from the previous activists, religious scholars and
clerics and language specialists and others so the research led to and
confirmed that the problem lies in: -
The
concern which haunts the parents of the talk that their daughter is
uncircumcised (stigma) and this concern is an inherited popular culture
The used
language was very negative and connotes defamation and (insult) with a clear
linguistic stigma in the word of (ghalfa i.e. a colloquial disgraceful
name-calling meaning uncircumcised) because it has meanings and
relevance to other concepts linked to misconduct, prostitution and social
unacceptability and also linked to impurity, whilst the pro-circumcision
language is positive and persuasive for it urges for purity, chastity and
cleanliness
The
expected community behavior and initial response (for example, if the
people start abandoning the female circumcision, we will abandon it and vice
versa)
The
female circumcision abandonment decisions were individualistic decisions and
need collective support.
These sources of concern necessitated consultation
around new ways and means stemming out from the community hence came the
research in the language and linking it to a popular culture based on a new
framework negating the values associated
with the female circumcision while not scratching or compromising the
values \ old context (the sexual happiness – harmony-
compliance - purity - chastity), thus from here came the idea of Saleema
as a new context that does not compromise the old framework of values since
the stages for reaching Saleema were formed from a thorough review of all the
previous messages in a demonstration through which the male/female participants
and male/female specialists discussed the advantages and complexities of the
previous messages.
Following several stages of analysis, we found that
we need a new expertise and a new language to communicate, so the intellectuals
and experts started searching in the language for names carrying the contents
of the positive message that the society needs, away from the messages that carry
the nature of commands (stop.. quit), thus several terms were selected with
their full meanings so different words came like nice, perfect, clean, sweet
and pure, and then came the word pure from purity (the Arabic word tahra which
is derived from tahara) but we found that it is doesn’t comprise the meaning that we want to explain the better
state for the girl without circumcision. One of the audience suggested the
Arabic name "salma" which means complete/safe in English, but I noted
that a society is carrying the word as a name which would create a confusion
between the word and the said society's name and I suggested the word or the
term "Saleema which means whole, healthy in body and mind, unharmed as
created by God", which all the experts confirmed as the (magical) word for
bringing about the change for it carries the comprehensive meaning and
describes the uncircumcised girl.
After agreeing on the term, the most prominent
question in that consultative meeting was: What are the means of communication that
we want Saleema to achieve and that through which we can create new voices to
increase a constant contact for questioning the society in a new language,
besides Saleema logo shall be in eye-catching colors acceptable to all the
public in all parts of Sudan, moreover, it was necessary to draw the attention
for not mixing Saleema messages with the circumcision messages and their
negative impacts and should be indirect to incite pondering, inquisition and
question marks to create more contact with the community.
Saleema colors are drawn from a child protection
campaign with the colors of observe, listened and talk. Since a shift in shift
in the directions of the dialogue with the community is a necessity, so the
cheerful, exhilarating, lovely colors likeable to all the Sudanese people have
been used in Saleema movement under the slogan: "Every Girl is Born
Saleema, Let Every Girl Grow Saleema" in a social movement to which
everyone belongs without distinction or bias for living the content is the
fundamental message of Saleema, besides using Saleem tools is a signal to the
community in pictures and shapes that carry Saleema logo to raise questions
around Saleema and create a dialogue for leaving the girl Saleema and if there
is no dialogue, there will be no change to make collective decisions so our
daughters will remain Saleema and work to maintain the absolute value that
says: "Every Girl is Born Saleema, Let Every Girl Grow Saleema".
