Olachi is a UW-Madison graduate with a Bachelor's degree in Communications. She is an aspiring entrepreneur and content creator who is passionate about sustainability and community design based thinking. Olachi believes strongly that social media should be used as a tool to help overlooked people in society go from being "invisible" to "visible". She admires Sahiyo's mission and hopes to not only learn from, but be a great addition to their multi talented team.

What was your experience of learning about female genital cutting (FGC) for the first time?

I remember learning about FGC in high school. At that time I subconsciously thought “ah it must be more of a problem in rural areas” and believed it was just a problem of lack of education due to mainly poverty and/or ignorance. I thought that since so many areas were advocating for better education opportunities for girls, it would naturally decrease in time.

It was embarrassingly not until I joined Sahiyo that I realized the gravity and the impact of FGM/C around the world. This helped me reflect on issues that I may have subconsciously pushed aside or remained nonchalant about because it was a problem that would fix itself with "government intervention and time”. Now though it is true that societal issues can be lessened with those two factors, I realised ultimately that it might have been another way of me not paying attention to something simply because it did not directly affect me directly. 

When and how did you first get involved with Sahiyo?

I first came across Sahiyo around late March this year. At this time I was actually looking for volunteer work I could do related to Women’s mental health (as I am a huge mental health advocate) and I coincidentally fell on Sahiyo’s page on LinkedIn. I thought the job being offered matched me both skill and interest wise so I applied around April and luckily joined the team as an intern. 

What does your work with Sahiyo involve?

I work as a Social Media Intern where I essentially learn how to manage social media handles, create social media as well as blog content and overall improve Sahiyo’s communication presence.

How has your involvement with Sahiyo impacted your life?

I feel the most important thing that I have learned while working with Sahiyo is that one needs to constantly reflect and check themselves for any hidden or un-addressed biases due to things like privilege or difference in way of life. In my case it was my lazy nonchalance for FGM/C issues and survivors by simply chalking it up to just a class issue and not complex issue that comprised of class AND culture. Working with Sahiyo also helped me learn about non-binary and trans men who could also be survivors but were ultimately invisible when discussions about FGM/C occurred. This overall helped me gain a deeper understanding of how the concepts of intersectionality and representation can and should look like when being discussed within a topic. 

What words of wisdom would you like to share with others who may be interested in supporting Sahiyo and the movement against FGC?

I strongly admire FGM/C survivors and activists who tirelessly spread awareness on this topic. I would like to especially reach out to those who may not be in FGM/C practicing communities and encourage them to reach out to Sahiyo for informational guides and resourceful ways to support the movement against FGM/C. In several cultures, being assigned female at birth usually means being constrained and even hurt because of what our perceived gender/sex is assumedly supposed to conform to. Because of this, it is even more imperative that we all stand up for one another no matter where we come from.  

Within the U.S., there are currently 10 states without any laws in place to protect girls from Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C); Connecticut is one of those states. Since 2021, the Connecticut Coalition to End FGM/C has been working to build holistic solutions for supporting survivors and preventing future generations of girls from experiencing FGM/C in the State of Connecticut. The Coalition is made up of a diverse range of stakeholders, who advocate for comprehensive legislation to protect girls from FGM/C, provide survivors with support services, raise awareness of the harm FGM/C causes, and educate frontline professionals on how to provide culturally specific and sensitive care. 

In June 2022, CT Coalition members Mariya Taher of Sahiyo and Steven Hernandez of theCT Commission on Women, Children, Seniors, Equity & Opportunity hosted a conversation to discuss women’s bodily autonomy and FGM/C, to further raise awarenss of this issue within the state.

Listen to their conversation here.

On June 23rd, Caitlin LeMay, LCSW of the US End FGM/C Network, and Mariya Taher, MSW, MFA of Sahiyo, parterned to provide a workshop on Female Genital Cutting (FGC) for social workers through Boston College Continuing Education. The workshop provided an introductory foundation for understanding what FGC is, including prevalence in the U.S. and globally, and best practices for working with survivors. Pre- and post-evaluations revealed a significant increase in participants’ confidence with talking about and addressing FGC in their social work practices, and how to provide relevant resources if needed.

Boston College Continuing Education, in collaboration with the School of Social Work, offers a series of workshops three times a year - in Spring, Summer, and Fall - for new and experienced social workers looking to earn CEUs to maintain their license.

Sahiyo U.S. would like to thank our friends at the Peace Development Fund for a core support grant award of $5,000.00. The Peace Development Fund supports organizations who are working to shift power, build a movement, dismantle oppression, and create new structures. This grant, from their Community Organizing Grants Fund, is made possible by hundreds of donors across the country who believe in investing in grassroots community organizations such as Sahiyo U.S. 

These funds will help Sahiyo specifically by expanding our Community Outreach and Education Program, which trains health care providers, government officials, law enforcement, social services, and other community based organizations on ways to support female genital cutting (FGC) survivors; planning for our next Annual Activist Retreat, where we train advocates to continue their work raising awareness against FGC; and conducting valuable research investigating the needs of FGC survivors and the intersections of FGC and other oppressions, such as discrimination based on race, gender, religion, sexuality, and diverse migrant experiences.

Since January 2022, Sahiyo has been in collaboration with Asian Women's Shelter (AWS) to increase capacity of services for survivors of female genital cutting (FGC). In June, Sahiyo conitnued with  trainings on FGC for the AWS staff and volunteers to help educate their organization on the context of FGC in the United Stataes, who FGC impacts, and considerations around how to work with survivors and communities impacted by FGC. 

Asian Women’s Shelter is 501c3 with the mission to eliminate domestic violence by promoting the social, economic and political self-determination of women and all survivors of violence and oppression. AWS is committed to every person's right to live in a violence-free home, and has a specific focus towards addressing the cultural and language needs of immigrant, refugee, and U.S.-born Asian and Arab women and their children.

These trainings organized by Sahiyo are part of a larger 3-year project Sahiyo is undertaking in partnership with AWS and StoryCenter withfunding from the Department of Justice - Office of Victim’s of Crime , to better integrate FGC into mainstream and culturally specific gender-based violence prevention and support organizations in order to bolster overall support and capacity of care for survivors of FGC within the United States. 

Read more about AWS trainings.

On June 20th, Sahiyo co-founder Aarefa Johari submitted an online oral statement on Female Genital Cutting (FGC) in Asia at the United Nations’ 50th Human Rights Council. The statement was made on behalf of the Asian-Pacific Resource and Research Centre for Women (ARROW) and the Asia Network to End Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting. 

The video statement was aired at an HRC “Interactive Dialogue session with the Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.” It was one of over 75 video statements about health rights made by activists and experts from around the world. 

Johari’s statement highlighted the widespread prevalence of FGC in several Asian countries, and the lack of resources and attention towards addressing the issue in these nations. Johari called on UN member states to undertake thorough research on FGC in Asia, increase funding towards community-based organisations working to end the practice, and to enact legislation to prohibit all forms of FGC. 

You can view Johari’s video statement here.

We are proud to announce that Sahiyo U.S. Advisory Board Member Joanna Vergoth, LCSW, NCPsyA, was chosen as a 2021 CRAVE Foundation for Women grant recipient. She is a psychotherapist, specializing in trauma and was choosen as a recipient for her committed activism of over 20 years in helping those impacted by Female Genital Cutting (FGC). The CRAVE Foundation for Women was established to support individuals working towards creating a world where pleasure is a universal human right.

Read more about Joanna’s work here.

By Anonymous

I am a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. Though for much of my life, “victim” felt like the most honest word. Those experiences have shaped my relationships, both to others and with myself, so that forging an identity outside of that trauma is an impossibility. What happened to me exists in public court records and it is known within and outside of my community; it is the thing we don’t talk about at family dinners. So, when I thought of myself, what it meant to be me, “victim” was always near the top of that list.

Despite years of therapy, some things are still very hard for me. Some days I am driven by a nameless panic, shaking hands and speeding thoughts and all. Others are much worse than that. A patient, well-deep sadness that I don’t think I will ever be entirely free of. My body often feels like a thing separate from me, such dissociation is not uncommon. The complexity of mental health is never lost on survivors; some days are bad, others are calm and joyful. That’s the journey, and this is a thing I carry. It’s heavy, but I do.

When I found Sahiyo, I knew immediately that this was an organization I wanted to be a part of. I knew it would be healing but as any survivor knows, healing can be painful, too. I knew it would challenge me, force me to examine deeply uncomfortable truths. This was an opportunity to observe where my hesitations were coming from. I wanted to become comfortable talking about women’s bodies, about trauma, about health and wellness—all of the things we so gladly tuck away.

So in those early days, that’s all I did. I read Maasi blogs, which handled trauma with grace, patience, and accessible resources. I (safely and mindfully) pushed myself to really look at the language and how it was being used. I focused on my body's responses as I read words I would normally avoid: cutting, labia, orgasm, vagina, genitals, clitoris, consent. I read the stories of survivors, and I held space for their pain, grief, anguish, and their bravery. Over time I realized that so much of their narratives mirrored my own experience.

Like them, I knew as a child that something had happened to me. I knew that I was one person before those experiences, and another afterward. Even as a child, I knew that my body now carried the weight of trauma. But like some survivors of female genital cutting, I would reach for the memories and come up with nothing but flashes of pain. Mostly empty air. Whether my mind was protecting itself, or those memories never formed due to particular details of the events, I don’t really know. My body remembers even when my mind can’t. 

When I was in my early twenties and in a good mental space, I started asking about it. Family, community members who might have insight into the social atmosphere at the time, reporters, the judge who presided over the case. I looked over the court records for the first time. I learned about what had happened to me, what had really happened to me, through the stories of others. There are no words for what an odd, alien experience that was: to ask other people the details about one of the most intimate, traumatic, and developmentally defining experiences of my life. In all of my years of therapy and trauma research, I had never encountered other survivors who had to look outside of themselves, and to their community, to find the answers. Not until Sahiyo.

As I read their stories I found words for my own experience. I was able to so strongly identify with their grief and anguish that it felt like a physical tug in my chest. For every hour I spent wondering who I could’ve been without the weight of this sadness, someone else was working through that same struggle. And they were so brave and courageous, talking about their trauma with community members and advocating for childhood consent, working to eradicate FGC. You can't fully appreciate the strength it takes to speak openly about intimate trauma unless you’ve experienced it. These women are building a better world–both despite and because of what happened to them.

Our individual experiences are not the same. The weight of that generational trauma is not something I’m able to fully grasp, but I do know that I found courage and strength in their bravery. I know that I’ve reached a deeper place of acceptance with my own trauma. I choose patience, healing, and compassion just as I choose “survivor.” And that choosing is an act of defiance, of empowerment, of strength. It is both because of–and despite–what happened to me. The language of our internal world matters. 

It’s always going to be hard. I wish that the world was a better place than it currently is. But if you are a survivor of childhood sexual abuse looking for a safe community of people who understand intimate body trauma, there is space for you here. Volunteering for Sahiyo means being a part of a global movement making the world safer and more accessible for women and girls from every background. It’s a worthy cause.