Youth 4 Change to End FGM Erasmus Project

Project Title

Youth 4 Change to End FGM

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for youth

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Gender equality / equal opportunities; Youth (Participation, Youth Work, Youth Policy) ; Migrants’ issues

Project Summary

FGM comprises all procedures involving partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, or other injury to the female genital organs, for non-medical reasons. It is a harmful practice that is recognised worldwide as a human rights violation. FGM is a global concern affecting more than 200 million girls and women in 30 countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia, and girls below 14 represent 44 million of those who have been cut, therefore FGM is clearly a child’s rights issue. An estimated 500,000 women and girls are living with the effects in Europe, however internal calculations by End FGM EU substantially increase this number up to almost a million. The practice of FGM is deeply rooted in gender and social norms and socio-cultural dynamics that perpetuate it within communities. It is important to stress that FGM is not linked to any specific religion but is present in different societies around the world practicing islam, christianity, judaism and other indigenous beliefs. It is all the more evident the importance to address it in a coordinated, comprehensive and transnational way, through concrete actions for social change to make it an issue of the past.
Our commitment to end FGM in Europe and beyond would be incomplete and unsustainable without mobilising and preparing the next generation of activists for the tasks ahead. End FGM EU believe that children and young people have a unique perspective and potential to drive this change if they are educated and empowered to play their role promoting and protecting the rights of women and girls. To this aim, End FGM EU has begun to embrace young people from FGM-affected diaspora communities as core partners in ending FGM and is moving toward a youth centred approach to our work.
The project aims at strengthening an empowered young pan-European movement to end FGM. Its main objective is to build the capacities and skills of a team of 10 girls and young women (Ana, Fatucha, Djenab, Kadiatou, Veronique, Hawa, Salamata, Hamdi, Sameara and Hadeel) between 16 and 23 years from FGM-affected diaspora communities (from Guinea Bissau, Guinea Conakry, Mauritania, Sudan and Somalia) living in 5 different European countries (Portugal, Belgium, the Netherlands, France and the UK) to ensure youth voices are an integral part of the European movement to end FGM and help them building their own pan-European project. The 10 participants to our Youth Hub (a pan-European youth engagement group that End FGM EU put in place in 2017 to ensure having youth voices at the heart of our work) explicitly asked in their last annual meeting in February 2019 to be supported in the realisation of a transnational project around the creation of a YouTube Channel by youth and for youth dedicated to raising awareness on FGM and other wider issues around violence against young women and girls. To do so and succeed in such an ambitious project, they identified as essential the acquisition and development of skills around video making/editing & social media management, to be able to deliver quality content. This will be the content of the training they will receive within this Erasmus Plus project, to help them realise their dream. Moreover, after receiving the training, by creating cross-border awareness raising activities, both online (YouTube Channel, Podcast) and offline (launch events in their respective countries in their universities and schools, as well as a final pan-European event to be held in Brussels), the youth will be able to make the difference in the work towards the elimination of FGM by ensuring that their young perspective on this subject is heard.
This project is a perfect example of youth ownership of a project and more precisely of a “Young people-initiated and directed” project, according to the 7th step of the Ladder of Youth’s Participation.
End FGM EU as project coordinator and will ensure the overall coordination of the project and oversee all activities of participants and of its members, as well as supporting the youth in the transnational activity, final event and dissemination strategy. The rest of the partners will support the youth in their national activities such as the national launch events. FORWARD UK will be in charge of organising the capacity building activity for the 10 participants.
The specific expected results of this project are: * 10 young participants increase their video-making/editing and social media management capacities and skills; * A YouTube channel is created and engages a large number of youth in constructive intercultural and interreligious dialogues; * The YouTube channel is widely disseminated and more youth participants are recruited. The long term expected results is the establishment of an enabling environment for an empowered and skilled European movement of young people to come together, make connections, share experiences and carry out transnational activities to end all forms of violence against girls and young women.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 31673 Eur

Project Coordinator

END FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION-EUROPEAN NETWORK & Country: BE

Project Partners

• ASSOCIACAO PARA PLANEAMENTO DA FAMILIA
• EQUILIBRES ET POPULATIONS
• FEDERATIE VAN SOMALISCHE ASSOCIATIES IN NEDERLAND VERENIGING
• FOUNDATION FOR WOMEN’S HEALTH RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
• Groupe pour l’Abolition des Mutilations Sexuelles féminines – Belgique