Hope for Girls and Women Tanzania  will be hosting a webinar this Thursday May 7th, at 14:00 – 15:00 BST : Impact of Covid-19 on ending FGMThis is a follow-up to a webinar that they had last week on 22nd April. You can register for the webinar here, and please see webinar details below. 

Join Hope for Girls and Women Tanzania to hear from Dr. Annemarie Middelburg, a passionate consultant from the Netherlands with unique expertise on women’s rights and the practice of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), who will give an overview of how COVID-19 might impact FGM work, based on the feedback she has received from our previous webinar, the recording of which is here. She will also give an update on new research related to COVID-19, including the Technical Note of UNFPA on the impact of Covid-19 on FGM.

During the webinar, Rhobi Samwelly will give a short update on how COVID-19 is currently impacting her work in the two safe houses that she is running in Tanzania. We will further explore the situation in Kenya, since some disturbing news and newspaper articles about the impact of Covid-19 and the increase in the number of girls cut have come to our attention the past week.

Agnes Pareyio, director of Tasaru Ntomonok Initiative and the current chair of the Anti-FGM Board, will share with us her perspective. We will also learn from a variety of FGM campaigners in Kenya who have recently developed new ways of advocacy and campaigning in times when community outreach is impossible due to Covid-19. Margaret Oyugi of COVAW will share experiences how they use the radio to engage communities in Narok Country. This is followed by a more general discussion on the potential risks, opportunities, challenges and solutions related to Covid-19 and our efforts to end FGM. This webinar will be interactive and there will be many opportunities to ask questions.