In this episode we speak with Njomeza Kartallozi

Njomeza is a trained and registered psychotherapist, with an interest is cross-cultural therapy. While working as Community Development Therapist at Women’s Therapy Centre she established a community therapeutic model to make therapy accessible to a wide range of cultures and groups. She has been working as the Dahlia group psychotherapist since the start of the project and has helped to develop and shape the service through her cross cultural expertise. She also runs Therapeutic Services at Manor Gardens Welfare Trust. She is a member of BACP.

She speaks with us about the work she does with the Dahlia Project to support survivors of FGM/C

In this episode, we speak with Joy Clarke, who is a retired FGM Specialist Midwife, activist, harmful practices trainer and mentor. She established the FGM clinic at Whittington Health in June 2000. The clinic provides a specialist service for pregnant and non-pregnant women coping with the effects of Female Genital Mutilation. Joy has presented her work at National and International conferences, symposiums and forums and has contributed to the London NHS FGM Steering Group, Trust for London advisory Group including various NGO and the media.

The FGM service was recognised and praised as a model for the rest of the NHS by Commission for Health Improvement (CHI) in 2002 and has won many other awards since. Joy believes keeping FGM high on the agenda is key to improving the life of women and girls at risk or potential risk of FGM, this could be achieved by ongoing National and international campaigns which must be recognised by Government and Local Authorities.

We are happy to announce our next episode of this season just before the new year!

In this episode we interview Valerie Lolomari, an anti-FGM advocate, resilience coach, author of the Unwanted, motivational speaker, healthcare practitioner & founder of Women of Grace, a charity that delivers masterclasses, creates support networks & provides 1-1 and group support to FGM survivors.

This podcast is for you if you are looking to educate yourself on the role of Community based projects and the role of Advocacy.

If you would like to know more about her book, please go to this website: The Unwanted: From Rejection to Glory by Valerie T Lolomari (goodreads.com)

More information about women of grace can be found on their website: Women Of Grace

Thank you for your support and please feel free to leave below a comment if you want to share with us what you thought of this episode! Remember Tote Bags are still available to be purchased and the Fundraiser is still open!

In the fourth episode, we introduce the last part of 3 episodes with The Vavengers, a UK-based survivor-led non-profit, working to end FGM/C (Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting) and all other forms of Violence Against Women and Girls.

Across these 3 interviews with The Vavengers, we have discussed the importance of using the correct terminology, current community-based initiatives & educational programmes in London as well as the role of healthcare to help end FGM/C. We discuss the role of the media as a resource for women and girls to advocate for change within their communities and the importance of having an intersectional approach.

Special thanks to Hoda and Sema for coming to talk to us, and to The Vavengers team overall for the amazing work they do on their advocacy work and campaigning against gender-based violence. For those interested, they are running the UK's only pop-up holistic wellness & support hubs for women and girls. Anyone who identifies as a woman or girl (or in the body of a woman or girl) is more than welcome to join - there are no eligibility criteria to join their hubs and legal status or household income isn't questioned. Please feel free to reach out to us with any questions, a link to The Vavengers website is also on our link tree where you can read more about what they do!

For our second part of three episodes with The Vavengers, we speak with Sema Gornall.

Sema is the CEO of The Vavengers, entrepreneur and writer, who talks with us in this episode about her early life in Turkey, her journey into her activism and working within the advocacy sector for women and girls! Learn more about Sema and her journey at www.semagornall.com

If you missed the first part of these three episodes, where we speak with Hoda Ali, the Founding Trustee of The Vavengers, you can find this either on our instagram page or on Youtube, Spotify or RSS feed that you can access via our linktree.

Special thanks to Hoda and Sema for coming to talk to us, and to The Vavengers team overall for the amazing work they do on their advocacy work and campaigning against gender-based violence. For those interested, they are running the UK's only pop-up holistic wellness & support hubs for women and girls. Anyone who identifies as a woman or girl (or in the body of a woman or girl) is more than welcome to join - there are no eligibility criteria to join their hubs and legal status or household income isn't questioned. Please feel free to reach out to us with any questions, a link to The Vavengers website is also on our link tree where you can read more about what they do!

Please stay tuned for the final episode in 2 weeks time if you’d like to hear from both Hoda & Sema to further explore these topics. We hope you found this informative & continue to support the podcast as well as the charities we are collaborating with!

If you enjoyed this episode, the link to donate for future series or to buy merch is in our bio as well as the link to our Youtube/Spotify/RSS feed where you can also listen to this podcast!

In the second episode, we introduce the first part of 3 episodes with The Vavengers, a UK-based survivor-led non-profit, working to end FGM/C (Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting) and all other forms of Violence Against Women and Girls.

We start with a conversation with Hoda Ali, the Founding Trustee of The Vavengers - who also worked as a sexual health nurse for many years and is currently working as a Safeguarding Specialist. In this first part, she speaks about her experience as a survivor of FGM/C & her journey into her current work & activism. She also discusses the role of the healthcare system in protecting women and girls at risk of or who have experienced FGM/C. Learn more about Hoda and her journey at www.hodamali.com

In the next part, we will be interviewing Sema Gornall, the CEO of The Vavengers, entrepreneur and writer. We will be talking with her about her early life in Turkey, and her journey into her activism and working within the advocacy sector for women and girls! Learn more about Sema and her journey at www.semagornall.com

Across these 3 interviews with The Vavengers, you can expect to hear conversations about the importance of using the correct terminology, current community-based initiatives & educational programmes in London as well as the role of healthcare to help end FGM/C. We discuss the role of the media as a resource for women and girls to advocate for change within their communities and the importance of having an intersectional approach.

Special thanks to Hoda and Sema for coming to talk to us, and to The Vavengers team overall for the amazing work they do on their advocacy work and campaigning against gender-based violence. For those interested, they are running the UK's only pop-up holistic wellness & support hubs for women and girls. Anyone who identifies as a woman or girl (or in the body of a woman or girl) is more than welcome to join - there are no eligibility criteria to join their hubs and legal status or household income isn't questioned. Please feel free to reach out to us with any questions, a link to The Vavengers website is also on our link tree where you can read more about what they do!

Please stay tuned for the next episode in 2 weeks time if you’d like to hear from Sema & to further explore these topics. We hope you found this informative & continue to support the podcast as well as the charities we are collaborating with!

If you enjoyed this episode, the link to donate for future series or to buy merch is in our bio

Did you know why the first episode of season one of Crossroads is released on 13 October?

We choose this day because it is International Civility For the Girl Child Day – a day dedicated to honour, promote, and support a girl's right to make her own decisions.

Girls around the world continue to face unprecedented challenges to their education, their physical and mental wellness, and the protections needed for a life without violence.

As bell hooks rightly says, "when we love children, we recognise with our every action that they are not property, that they have rights, that we respect and defend their rights".

That is why, on 13th of October we will be releasing our first ever Crossroads episode, to defend children's rights, and in particular girls rights to not undergo FGM/C performances. We are aware this is a very sensitive subject, which is the reason why Crossroads focuses on a survivor-led approach on how young women and girls can have agency to make sustainable change within their communities to eradicate FGM/C.

We hope you find it informative, and you continue to support our Advocacy work: our fundraising donation page is going live tomorrow! Thank you to you all for showing up to this community! We will be posting an episode every 2 weeks :)

Here you fill find the list of resources we used to record this first episode:

28 too many available sources

Rigmor C. Berg and Eva Denison’s research “A Tradition in Transition: Factors Perpetuating and Hindering the Continuance of Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C) Summarized in a Systematic Review”.

United Nations Population Fund

Female Genital Cutting: Cultural Rights and Rites of Defiance in Northern Tanzania by Anna Winterbottom, Jonneke Koomen and Gemma Burford

Female genital mutilation: multiple-case studies of communication strategies against a taboo practice by Kyung Sun Lee