Breaking the Silence trains Indigenous Samburu women and girls to understand and prevent HIV/AIDS and end the harmful practice of female genital mutilation (FGM), also called "female circumcision".
All over Africa, women and girls are contracting HIV/AIDS faster than any other group. A 2005 UNAIDS report revealed that two-thirds of young women (aged 15-24 years) in 24 sub-Saharan countries lack knowledge of HIV transmission, and how it relates to their own lives. Practices like FGM increase a women’s risk of HIV infection even further. MADRE and our partners at IIN and Umoja Uaso Women’s Group are training young women in and around Umoja, Kenya to identify and resist high-risk behavior.
With your help, young women will learn to demystify and destigmatize HIV/AIDS and FGM—breaking the silence that is killing women and girls—through workshops that relate modes of transmission to their own lives.
Lower rates of HIV infection among women and reduce the number of FGM cases in rural Samburu communities; and increase pressure on Kenyan public health officials to offer access to sexual and reproductive health services to Indigenous Kenyan women.
This project has provided additional documentation in a Microsoft Word file (projdoc.doc).
