Efua Dorkenoo - Programme Director, End FGM/C Social Change Campaign - DFID Girl Summit 2014

"Community is the foundation on which Africa builds its society and shapes its culture." Efua Dorkenoo

Panel Discussion: Spotlight on Progress "Brands, Media and Communications: Powerful Tools to Shift Social Norms for Girls"

Context: This presentation is from one of the 14 "Spotlights on Progress" video-recorded sessions from the Girl Summit 2014, London, United Kingdom (UK). The sessions were organised to share best practice between practitioners, grassroots activists, and government ministers across the issues of female genital mutilation (FGM) (also FGM/C - female genital mutilation/cutting) and child, early, and forced marriage (CEFM). Girl Summit is a project of the Department for International Development (DFID), UK.

Profile of speaker: Efua Dorkenoo, deceased in October 2014, was Programme Director, End FGM/C Social Change Campaign. [Editor's note: In honour of her work, please add your comments to this post so that we can include links and further information about her work for girls and women.] She spoke at the 2014 Girl Summit on campaigning on FGM for more than 30 years in her talk entitled "Using media, communications and branding to build a global movement for social change from the bottom up - Africa/Global." She was granted the title Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE) and was a Ghanaian founder, in 1983, of the Foundation for Women's Health, Research and Development (FORWARD), a British charity that supports women who have experienced FGM. Dorkenoo was the author of Cutting the Rose: Female Genital Mutilation (1996). She was Advocacy Director of the FGM Programme for Equality Now, an international human rights organisation. She launched the Girl Generation campaign, available here.

Strategy overview: Dorkenoo felt that 2014 was an opportune time to take the campaigning to a global level in Africa and beyond. Her work as part of the DFID-supported End FGM/C Social Change Campaign (see related summaries below) involved efforts to end FGM/C, with a vision to seeing an end to the practice in one generation by: catalysing a global Africa-led movement, implementing programmes at the community level, building a supportive enabling environment for social change, and researching and learning to create an evidence base for future work. In 2014, the campaign was launched on the Day of the Child, using traditional marketing tools to tackle FGM by updating social norms on a wide scale: "to shift mindsets; to engage young people whole communities and governments; to communicate positive messages about the benefits of not cutting girls through whatever media works best in different countries." The "branding" or umbrella identity for the movement includes: a name, the Girl Generation campaign; a logo; and a visual identity under which the movement can come together: individuals, civil society, governments, professional organisations, and the private sector. 

Communication can include "local radio, national TV, whatever works in each country, communicating the benefits of abandoning FGM and the costs of not doing so, in order to engage with girls, their parents and extended families, communities, and nations." The movement will adapt its social marketing approach, encouraging young people in each country to take up and modify the branding, inviting groups to shape the campaign to their concerns and interests. By promoting local ownership of the campaign and free and easy access to campaign materials and messaging, anyone can engage, providing the avenue for quick scale up, focusing particularly on ten African countries. Dorkenoo stated that traditions can be kept while leaving behind the violence - showing that cultures are not static, that there is energy on the content in the present that can promote the movement to end FGM in this generation. She ended by saying that, by harnessing the energy and passion of Africa, we are getting closer to ending FGM, and we all will benefit from that.
 
Overview of this Summit session: From the Girl Summit summary document: "New and traditional media, brand platforms and communications strategies are proven tools that have triggered discussions and shifted perceptions. Speakers will give examples of how these tools are being used to change how girls see themselves and are perceived in their communities, as well to elevate the dialogue on key issues to national levels and beyond."

The speakers, in order of appearance, are:

Susan Shabangu, Minister of Women in the Presidency, South Africa.

Daniela Colombo, President, AIDOS - Italian Association for Women in Development.

Dr. Ben Cislaghi, Director of Monitoring, Evaluation, Research and Learning, Tostan.

Bruktawit Tigabu Tadesse, Co-founder, Whizz Kids.

Efua Dorkenoo, [former] Programme Director, End FGM/C Social Change Campaign.

Poonam Muttreja (Executive Director, Population Foundation of India.

Kate Wedgwood (Country Director, Girl Hub Rwanda) .

Dr. Amal Mahmoud Abdalla (Secretary General of National Council for Child Welfare).

The session is moderated by Eric Levine, Interim CEO Stars Foundation."

Footage of this (available below) and other "Spotlights" are available on DFID’s YouTube channel.

The Girl Summit is a project of DFID. Click here and scroll down to see the full list of individuals and organisations committed to working on girls' issues, as well as a list of Girl Summit Charter signatories.