We’re excited to release our July 2021 to June 2022 Annual Report and hope you’ll take the time to learn more about how we’ve been working to end female genital cutting (FGC). 

Over the past year at Sahiyo, we expanded our programs with the support of our staff, interns, volunteers, and Advisory Board. 

• Our survivor-story-centered blog has grown and we launched a new column called Scenarios by Sahiyo that features comic strips based on real-life stories by activists, advocates, and allies working to end FGC. 

• We hosted our 6th Voices to End FGM/C workshop with 9 participants, bringing the total number of videos created by the program to 55 participants from over 19 countries. Collectively, these videos have been viewed over 45,000 times! We are currently hosting our 7th workshop.

• We also launched a new website where you can learn more about the Voices to End FGM/C digital storytelling project at voicestoendfgmc.org.

• We received our first grant from the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Victims of Crime in partnership with Asian Women’s Shelter and StoryCenter to create a training curriculum and materials to educate gender-based violence advocates working in domestic violence and sexual assault organizations on FGC so that the overall capacity for care for FGC survivors can be increased

• We held our 5th annual U.S Bohra Activist Retreat with 13 participants, bringing the total number of advocates trained by Sahiyo to 74! 

• We’ve hosted and participated in 40 different community outreach and educational events, reaching around 2,000 people from across the globe. 

• Our Bhaiyo program has continued to grow, and we now have 15 Bhaiyos working with us to empower men to become engaged in the world to abandon FGC. 

We’re proud to share our accomplishments from this past year with you all and certainly hope you’ll take a look at our Annual Report to learn more about what our amazing team at Sahiyo has accomplished together!

This October 11th marked the Tenth Annual Day of the Girl Child, a day created by the United Nations General Assembly to highlight girls’ empowerment and promotion of their rights as well as to address challenges to gender equity. 

To honor the occasion, Sahiyo collaborated with partner organizations in two events to raise awareness of the harms of female genital cutting (FGC) and the work our organization is involved in to support survivors and work towards prevention of FGC for future generations.

• FGM Taskforce of Greater Los Angeles - A moderated panel with advocates in honor of the International Day of the Girl Child and Domestic Violence Awareness Month. The event was hoted by the FGM Taskforce of Greater Los Angeles. Speakers included: Athia Carrim, Dr. Nina Smart, Mariya Taher, Dr. Brenda Kaye Ingram, Muluemebet Alemayehu. 
• Voices to End FGM/C - A discussion-based event to uplift storytellers from the Voices to End FGM/C digital storytelling project and celebrate the 10th anniversary of the International Day of the Girl Child. The event was hosted by The World Bank, and sponsored by the GFLID FGM Legal Work Group Group, Sahiyo, and StoryCenter. Speakers included: Isabella Micali Drossos, Mariya Taher, Renee Bergstrom, Bayor Chantal, Amy Hill, Lou M.C. Granier. 

We are thankful for their collaboration and support, and look for future opportunities to work together to uplift girls’ empowerment! 

Read further to learn more about Sahiyo's work to uplift girls everyday.

For nearly the whole month of November, Sahiyo's co-founder and U.S. Executive Director Mariya Taher was in Panama with the Noma Collective, a community of remote working professionals. On November 10th, she hosted a workshop for the community to help raise awareness on the topic of female genital cutting (FGC), which many individuals were unaware of. The workshop provided an overview of storytelling’s impact in forming connections and creating social change, specifically in how Sahiyo uses storytelling as an intervention to support survivors of FGC. Participants were also given a general overview of FGC, the forms of FGC and their impacts, and the reasons and justifications given for the continuation of the harmful practice. At the end of the workshop, participants were given a chance to practice storytelling techniques used in Sahiyo programs through writing prompts and exercises, which focused on turning their travel experiences into meaningful stories. 

To learn more about Sahiyo's community education and outreach program, visit our website. 

This October, South Asian SOAR (Survivors, Organizations, and Allies — Rising, or SOAR), released the Together We Rise report. This collective of survivors, 30+ organizations, and allies, of which Sahiyo is a member of, works to advance the national movement to end gender-based violence (GBV) in the South Asian diaspora within the United States.

This report is a culmination of key findings from listening sessions held with its network, which spans across 13 states, in partnership with the Asian Pacific Institute on GBV (API-GBV). It sheds light on the challenges and needs of South Asian survivors, frontline organizations, communities, and the anti-GBV movement. Also included in the report is female genital cutting (FGC) as a form of GBV that is found amonst the South Asian Diaspora, as well as the limited services available to address this in a culturally competent manner. Sahiyo is proud to have contributed to this report and the work of South Asian SOAR.

To read the report, visit www.togetherwerise.report.

In collaboration with StoryCenter and Asian Women’s Shelter (AWS), Sahiyo began the seventh Voices to End FGM/C workshop on October 24th. This first meeting was held with participants from across the United States. The Voices to End FGM/C project is a digital storytelling workshop that aims to mobilize a critical mass of storytellers and activists by bringing them together to share and heal from female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C), connect and grow as leaders, and create short videos calling for an end to this harmful practice. To date, over  64 people from across 19 countries have taken part. 

To learn more, check out our new website: https://voicestoendfgmc.org 

On October 14th, Mohammad Chappalwala, a Bhaiyo (male ally), will be virtually presented with the Donald A. Strong Man of The Year award by the Global Woman P.E.A.C.E. Foundation. Mr. Chappalwala, who is based in India, will be unable to accept his award in-person, but is deeply humbled by the gesture; to put it in his own words, Mohammad believes he has “just started this journey of speaking out against the practice.” All of us at Sahiyo are proud to support the work of community members such as Mohammad, and are hopeful about further collaboration across our Bhaiyo program. Congratulations! 

To learn more about his contribution as a Bhaiyo, read this story on advising a concerned father how to navigate his daughters' risk of undergoing FGC.

On November 2nd, Sahiyo Programs Coordinator Catherine Cox and current volunteer (as well as former Development Assistant) Sarrah Hussein partnered on a presentation for a class at the Mitchell Hamline School of Law in Minnesota on the topic of female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C). The presentation included some background on what FGM/C is, it’s prevalence in the U.S., and some legal background in the United States. More specifically, they introduced some of Sahiyo’s past legal work in Massachusetts, and current work to get a comprehensive state-wide law passed in Connecticut . 

To learn more about Sahiyo’s community education and outreach programs, visit this page on our website.

By Meg Sinnott

This October 11th marks the Tenth Annual Day of the Girl Child, a day created by the United Nations General Assembly to highlight girls’ empowerment and promotion of their rights as well as to address challenges to gender equity. As outlined by the OECD, investing in women economically and socially benefits everybody. Investing in girls is an investment in the women of the future, and thus in the future itself. 

Girls can face a distinct set of gender inequitable challenges including child marriage, exclusion from education, gender-based violence, and harmful practices like female genital cutting (FGC). As advocates against FGC, the core of Sahiyo’s mission is to work with the community to ensure girls’ bodily integrity and protect them from harm. Read further to learn about Sahiyo's work and how we meet this mission. 

What is Sahiyo doing?

Connecticut Coalition to End FGM/C

In 2013, the Population Reference Bureau estimated that 2,658 women and girls in Connecticut (CT) were at risk of undergoing - or having already undergone - female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C). Sahiyo, a founding member of the Connecticut Coalition to End FGM/C, is building a survivor-led coalition of FGM/C activists, organizations, researchers, policymakers, foundations, healthcare providers, and others dedicated to protecting girls by bringing an end to FGM/C in Connecticut. Connecticut remains one of the last ten states in the U.S. without any such legal protection. The coalition is proposing a bill that aims to:

• Build partnerships between Connecticut’s state departments and agencies to prevent FGM/C and to protect and provide assistance to survivors
• Educate health service providers to provide culturally responsive services to survivors
• Ensure state agencies partner with community-based experts who are working with survivors to create training, materials, and other support services for survivors 

For the past two years, the coalition has met with stakeholders and legislators to educate them on FGC and the need for a holistic bill protecting future generations of girls from this harm. Learn more at http://endfgmcinct.com. 

Increasing Capacity to Support FGC Survivors

In January 2022, Sahiyo began working with Asian Women’s Shelter (AWS), a domestic violence organization based in San Francisco, CA, on a three-year project funded by the Department of Justice - Office of Victims of Crime to increase the capacity of care for survivors of FGC in the United States. For eight months, Sahiyo has provided a series of in-depth, interactive trainings to AWS staff, volunteers, and crisis line volunteers about FGC, the mental and physical health consequences of this harmful practice, and how to best support survivors. As a result, AWS was able to expand the capacity of its crisis line to include supporting survivors of FGC in August 2022.  

How can you support Sahiyo?  

To support the valuable work that Sahiyo does to protect the bodily integrity of girls and women, we invite you to participate in Sahiyo's first-ever virtual fundraising event, Sahiyo’s International Women’s Day Celebration & Silent Auction, from  March 8-12, 2023. During this five-day event, we’ll celebrate women's voices with video spotlights, stories, and entertainment. For more information about the event, donating auction items, participating in the program, volunteering on the planning committee, or sponsoring this event, please contact Sahiyo Development Coordinator, Michelle Taylor at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..