Seeds Of The Future/Somali Programme: a shared autoethnography on using creative arts therapies to work with Somali voices in Female Genital Mutilation refusal in the UK

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis paper describes a project, Seeds Of The Future/Somali Programme, which took place in June 2015. In the project, the disciplines of dramatherapy and creative writing were used in fusion in a series of workshops to gather testimony from Somali men, women and adolescent girls about their commitment to moving away from Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) as a community. These stories have been translated into Somali and podcast, so that they can be used at a grassroots level in the anti-FGM campaign to persuade newly arrived/non-English-speaking Somali immigrants that the British Somali community is rapidly transitioning away from FGM, and thereby reduce or prevent cutting of young Somali girls. The paper explains the need for effective Somali-language testimony, and how the project was executed. It also includes memoir and testimony from the workshop participants themselves.