Welcome And Setting The Scene

Speaker 0:09

When some days get a little tough, we'll help you find out some and lift you up to get you through the Sunflower blue.

Chantal 0:29

Today the Sunflower Conversations is coming to you from the Vavengers Office, which is in central London. So my name is Chantal and I'm the host, and our discussion today is going to be about female genital mutilation and cutting. The acronym for that is FGMC. Joining me to talk about this extremely sensitive topic is Sema Gornell, who is the CEO of this amazing charity, The Vavengers. One of the strap lines on your website is The Vavengers is a survivor and women-led movement committed to ending female genital mutilation and intersecting violence against women and first of all. I've got brown skin, long brown curly hair with glasses. I'm wearing a supporter lanyard, uh not lanyard, wristband, and I've got a white blouse on.

Sema 1:36

Okay, that would be very hard. I guess I'm a mid-height woman and wearing a gorgeous Michael Kors jacket, I would like to believe. Wearing white trousers, a white top, and I have blonde high highlights on my hair.

Chantal 1:52

Beautiful, thank you. So FGM a topic that's not discussed broadly in society, and that's what your charity is is seeking to do is to support women who have uh been at the suffered at their hands at this, that right?

Sema 2:07

Yeah. So we support women and children, right? Because you know, you can't just support children, because the FGM mostly happens to children. And our objective is to ensure that the mums who are survivors are also recognized as survivors themselves and they receive the support so it's sustainable for them to actually keep their children

Why Survivor Support Must Include Mums

Sema 2:28

safe. Because it's not something like, oh, just don't do that, it's bad. People know it's bad, they don't want to do it to their children. So that's one of the biggest misconceptions that we're actually fighting because in the frontline in the communities we see so much people want to end FGM. People don't want to leave their children in, you know, the suffering hands of forced marriage. But these things happen because of the other surrounding issues, like often poverty. I've never met a survivor of FGM who's only survived FGM. So we're trying to address all those issues so that women can keep their children safe.

Chantal 3:06

So it's quite complex. And what is the occurrence of it globally and in the UK?

Sema 3:12

Well, what we know of is 230 million women and girls alive today. Those are the numbers published by UNICEF last year. But these are the numbers that we know of. We can only estimate. But the true scale of FGM remains very much unknown because there's no data collection on this issue. This is not something that healthcare professionals, either in the UK or globally, routinely ask women and children have you been subjected to FGM? That's not the question that we ask. Although we have, you know, successful HIV screening, other areas of health in women's health where we are quite successful globally, but it's not something that is prioritized. But then when you look at the child marriage data, the women who've been subjected to marriage before they were 18, today, women who were before 18 who were married and children is one in five. So if it happens to almost always the same group of women and girls, we think it could be as high as one in five instead of the five percent of the population, female population that we know of. It's quite a big issue, I would say. Yeah, yeah.

Chantal 4:20

It's it's a cultural procedure.

Sema 4:24

So that's one of another misconceptions that we o actually try to educate people. I'm so glad you brought it up, because people often think it's it has something to do with culture, but when you look at FGM, it happens in Russia, it happens in Somalia, it happens in, you know, Middle East, it happens in all over the world. It's a truly global issue. So when you look from that perspective, how could that be cultural or religious? Because you know, it's literally happening everywhere. I do think FGM happens and exists because of the anti-rights movement that exists in our societies and the rights against women. Okay. So it's very much a gender issue, I would say. And there is demand to this. You know, we see young boys who are being, you know, pulled into the what we call red pill podcasts, right? And then they listen to these. And there are loads of men who actually promote this ideology, and then there are these young people who then go and demand it from, you know, oh, I won't marry a woman who's not cut. So what do you do? If there's no demand, this wouldn't happen. But there's absolutely no reason to do this medically. You would just not see us cutting off our, you know, hands or arms, but the harm is equivalent to that, the disability arm, because you're losing so much of your nerves. There are so many researches that show, you know, on the female genitalia, we have over 10,000 nerve fibers. Wow. It's one of the most sensitive areas of our body. So imagine when that's cut off. You can only imagine the medical damage that you are living with. It's a very serious disability, I would say.

Chantal 6:05

Yeah. Yeah. And and completely hidden.

Sema 6:09

Yeah.

Chantal 6:09

Yeah. I mean, like some c some people will question why FGM is a non-visible disability in terms of

How Common FGM Really Is

Chantal 6:18

and this is just down to education and and lack of awareness, which is why we're doing this podcast today. Some people might think, well, that's just a that's a procedure that happens and then it it happens, and then you can then live live a normal life, but you have had a horrible operation. Can you tell me why it is the outcome of actually undergoing a procedure?

Sema 6:41

Well, consequences of FGM is is huge. So sometimes I will meet some survivors who will come to our hubs thinking their FGM wasn't as, you know, so-called severe. They will be like, oh, well, I've only had type one, it's not a big deal. You know, I feel for the women who had type three, you know, mine is not that bad. They're trying to minimize it in their heads. But then when we take them through our health workshops, the support groups and networks, mental health support, they then remember things and then they actually realize actually the harm that I'm surviving wasn't even visible to me. And I was living in my body, not noticing the harms that I'm living with. So, you know, long story short, again, I've never met an FGM survivor who is not facing some sort of consequence, whether that's physical or mental health. But, you know, in terms of, you know, mental health, medical perspective, it's one of the greatest forms of torture that you can actually survive. And, you know, one in four cases is done by health professionals. So that's quite concerning that this is something that's subjected to women and girls by health professionals, or you know, the the rest is done by so-called, they call themselves practitioners.

Chantal 7:57

Yeah.

Sema 7:58

But it's not seen as a disability because I do think one of the reasons is because we don't fully understand, as a global society, we don't understand our female anatomy. You know, there are not that many researchers. You could even look at the um first time blood was used on the period products to test the period product was 2023. Right. And we've been wearing pads all along. Yeah. So I don't think we're investing in understanding female bodies. And if we didn't mind God, everybody would be shocked at you know the damage that FGM causes. And it also kills women and girls. Every 12 minutes, a girl child or a woman around the world dies because of the injuries sustained by FGM.

Chantal 8:40

I mean it's it's it's absolutely mind-blowing to know that this that the prevalence of it is so high. And even though these healthcare practitioners or uh specialists, so-called specialists, they are the ones performing this procedure, that they continue to do that when the the deaths are so high, you know.

Sema 9:01

And then we have labioplasty, which is a modernized version of this. Okay. Um and it's one of the number three plastic surgeries in, you know, around the world. People go and seek the surgery in, you know, I think they just want to so-called perfect their body, you know, give into the norms that is created by, I don't know, social media, the handful people who do run these, you know, so-called podcasts I've mentioned. And when they do have these surgeries, we also have a lot of clients who come to us and they're like, Well, I don't think I'm an FGM survivor, but I've done this surgery and I'm living with the consequences. And I looked at your website, it looks like what I have done to myself is FGM, but can I even say that? So they don't even see themselves as a survivor of FGM, even though there's no difference. You know, you can look up a labioplasty, it's a form of you know FGM, and they will do all type 1, type 2, type 3. But the name will be modernised and marketed as you know, nipping, tucking, you know, oh, you know, this will make you feel after childbirth, you're gonna look so great. Husband stitch is another one, it's gonna improve your sexual pleasure, all lies. If you're cutting off body of a part, you know, part of a body where you have 10,000 nerves, how could that ever improve your pleasure? But again, if we don't know that to begin with, you would just go in and with closed eyes, just do that surgery, go ahead thinking it's gonna help you because you're at a low point either mentally or you're seeking approval because you don't think you're born good enough.

Chantal 10:35

Yeah.

Sema 10:36

And it's not something that we can minimise, like a boob job. You know, the damage is just incomparable, you can't compare. There is no way. So, and because we don't walk around nude, it's invisible. Who's gonna know? Yeah.

Chantal 10:52

You were listening to the Sunflower Conversations. Remember to hit subscribe. You mentioned about sanitary towels before. Can you talk a little bit more about what that and the other sanitary products that people are available, like tampons and moon cups for an FGM survivor? What would that be like?

Sema 11:12

I mean, I have never been able to give away tampons or moon cup, or we we don't even stock them anymore because no survivor of FGM is interested in them. Or maybe I just haven't met someone who's willing to do that. Because I think A, you have a huge trauma surrounding your genitalia. We have hosted sexual pleasure workshops, for example, where we hired sex coaches and brought women in a safe space where we taught them how to map their genitalia. It's because there's so much stigma and you know trauma surrounding that area of your body that you just don't want to even think about it. And that was us trying to talk about, you know, self-pleasure, even things like, you know, where is what? How are you supposed to be if things were not you know taken away from you, just giving a bit of education? But yeah, pads are the only products that we can actually give away. But also in terms of pads, we're so lucky to get so many donations. Um, we have received organic, pure cotton, really good pads in the last, I would say, two

Hidden Harm And Cosmetic Rebranding

Sema 12:18

years. And the difference and the feedback we got was actually huge because people said, you know what, it doesn't scratch me and hurt me so much. And there are so many women who actually live with ongoing pain in their genitalia that what you wear where you sit down very much makes a difference. So another thing that we ask our providers is that actually we're saying, Can you give us this particular brand and that product because we got such good feedback? But things like Moon Cup or Pads, just sorry, the tampons, yeah, are of course just yeah, it doesn't land well. No.

Chantal 12:53

I was talking actually about the sanitary products recently with somebody who's got a young daughter who's just started menstruating and we were saying it, but actually it's very difficult to find one that's not plastic, you know, or man-made fibers, and actually that's such a sensitive area. They're very expensive.

Sema 13:11

Yeah. The the small pack of ten of the good ones that I'm talking about, the organic ones, I think they're like four and a half pounds a pack. Oh, that's a lot. I mean, we're so lucky that we get it for free and give it away to our community. But imagine if you were to buy it. I mean, that's another subject. I would like period products that are organic and non-toxic to be available, like a vending machine. You know, just we should be able to go to a GP and just take that and toothpaste and shampoo and soap. Like these are just basic human dignities that we all deserve. And it's not like we can stop bleeding unless you're on birth control. But then even that, not everybody has access to that. But I think there's so many complications around periods and FGM survivors. I mean, some type of of the FGM that they subject women and girls to that you can't even have your period freely. You know, with type three, we've seen a lot of women who said it's not coming out, and there are cases where they have to be to remove the blood surgically. And you know, who wouldn't want to just be able to? It's already a very difficult thing to go through your periods. Yeah. And imagine your blood is not even coming out properly, and because the the tiny bit of hole that they leave in type 3 is actually impossible to bleed out of or we out of. So the FGM specialist people, the healthcare professionals, they're very important. We don't have enough of them. I mean, we are campaigning for every health professional to be actually really well trained about this. Not that they will be providing, you know, surgeries like reconstructive surgery or any other surgery, but even I would say the cleaning staff in a hospital makes a huge difference because when they are cleaning the bathroom, you know, we've we've heard from survivors that they were crying and the cleaning staff came and was like, Well, you know, why are you crying? Are you okay? Can I take you to someone I know in this hospital? I think they can talk to you about this issue. But it's because that particular cleaning staff was actually trained about FGM and was able to, you know, this woman has been there a long time and she's weeping. And let me check in on her. Whatever this is. Yeah. Are you struggling? It sounds like you're struggling, do you have a health issue? And then she's telling her, We have actually a specialist in our hospital. You can go talk to that person. So often we do hear stuff. So I wish everybody was trained about FGM, because a huge, like I said, one in five could be the numbers that we're working with.

Chantal 15:33

Yeah.

Sema 15:34

But it's not something that anybody is actually educated on.

Chantal 15:38

And as you said, it's the uh emotional and mental trauma of that that will just, I would imagine, stay with you forever. And like a simple human response of having a period or having a we isn't something that, you know, I I really think about, you know, it's just something that I'm able to do. And so then not to be able to share that maybe with your colleagues or your friends at school what you're going through. There must be a lot of shame and I think shame and stigma are huge.

Sema 16:11

So this is why, you know, we have vagina and vulva accessories around, you know, we are very body positive. The genitalia positive, I would say we do use the word female genitalia. We wear like, well, shall I say that word? We're like, yeah, go ahead and say it. We actually do encourage people. Sometimes we even in our workshops, let's scream vulva, vagina, genitalia, like all these words that are supposed to be shameful. We try to make it okay to talk about that because you know, I've met women in their 50s who've never said the word genitalia. I've given an interview to a news channel, funny enough, and I was talking about this nerve fibers and the damage in the medical sense, and they cut off the word genitalia after they published it. And you can tell a four or five-year-old this is where your genitalia is located if you were to teach them about their bodies.

Chantal 17:02

And it's important that this education isn't just for women, right? It's important that it's for everybody to get that understanding about women's bodies, genitalia, and also to hopefully prevent these people that are watching these podcasts that you that you mentioned that are sending them down a very, very dark road into what the expectation is of young women, young girls.

Sema 17:27

And in order to end FGM, I would say men and boys need to be champions because this is the male-led violence. Like I said, if there wasn't demand, this wouldn't happen. It's done by women, two women and girls, in order to please men. So actually, men can't be like, well, I have nothing to do with this. I didn't know about no, it's being done for you.

Chantal 17:49

Yes.

Sema 17:49

You have to play a bigger role to actually fix the situation so that you can safeguard the next generation of, you know, girl children. And what we see is a lot of men and boys in in the UK context, for example, still don't know much about period of a girl. They don't know about puberty of a girl child, they don't know much about women's bodies. It's not really taught, like I said. And if you if you were to ask a question, I mean I see these interviews all the time where charities about body positivity, they ask young boys and men, and some of them are like in their 50s, grown men, where would the period blood come out of? And they don't even have the answer. And one of them was like, Oh, I've been married all these years, you know, I didn't know, and I'm married to a woman. And people just went, wow, so your your wife has been having and he he was like, Yeah, she's been having periods, and I had no idea. And that just really blows my mind, that kind of response that we get.

Chantal 18:49

It's only been recently that young women and girls would be confident to say that they had a period. It used to be that you'd kind of tuck something up your sleeve when you were in school and sort of say, Oh, Mirani, I need to go to the toilet and be incredibly embarrassed that you were having that you were ministrating that you were having your period, or you wouldn't ask um, you wouldn't ask from your partner or a male to because you've picked me some sanitary towels up from boots, you know, that that that was women wouldn't have done that. So it's things are moving now in the right direction, but we're so far behind in being not being embarrassed about our bodies. It is what it is, you know, we're human and it's all part of being human. So yeah, the um the conversation really does need to to dial up. And so we're talking about the non-visibility of it, both sort of mentally and physically. What do you think about the Sunflower as a method of letting you know other people know that the wearer's got a non-visible disability?

Sema 19:59

Well, first of all, I'm a Sunflower user. I use the disability lanyard and I have a card all the time because I travel a lot for my work, and travel can be quite a lot. You know, it takes me sometimes two weeks to reset and actually feel okay after traveling. And what I find is, you know, obviously you could use it on public transport. You could even just wear it and walk around to let people know you have a disability and they just need to be more helpful to you, be more understanding. I found airport experience actually quite life, you know, and they're signs, so you don't really need to have the language skills either. So I find it actually quite life-changing and it makes the experience so much better. I think they take their time and they are more helpful. They're not rushing. Because you can see sometimes in the airport, especially on really busy days, people get flustered, flustered. And I I wouldn't want to be a staff member

Periods Pain And Better Healthcare Training

Sema 20:58

at an airport to start with, because sometimes they're processing thousands of people. It's very difficult. But the minute they see that, I mean, particularly the UK airports, you know, Chef's Kiss, it's really good. They actually change their tone. You can see they're being much nicer to you, and it just makes you feel okay, this is actually really nice. But there's no way on earth you will be able to see I have a form of disability just by looking, because I look quite healthy, I look, you know, fit, I can walk around, but it doesn't mean just because you walk around and you look okay that you're okay on the inside or you know, mentally. So I I I'm a huge advocate of and I don't know who founded it, but yeah, I would love to thank them.

Chantal 21:38

I will pass I will pass it on. It actually started at an airport at Gatwick for those precise reasons to help the passengers whose needs weren't immediately obvious because that you know well, what's the statistics? I think globally it's one in six has a disability, and you know, it's estimated that up to eighty percent of that would be non visible. So they were like, We've got a lot of passengers who either aren't traveling or who are Or who are traveling and are really struggling. So that's where the genesis for the Sunflower.

Sema 22:15

And I think there's also shame in disability that, you know, I am guilty of this. You know, I felt so shameful of my disability for a long time. I've had severe health issues since I was a teenager. And you know, you would have medical professionals telling my mom, don't bother sending her to university because she's just gonna fall into pieces with the state of her, you know, vitals. It's not looking great. But I mentally pushed through and you know, I said, no, I will be part of the society and I'll be part of the workforce, whatever adjustment I need to make. I have a lot of adjustments. I love living like a princess life. You know, I have cushions, I have I sleep with particular weighted blankets, because we learn so much about wellness, but there's still shame. I every now and then I still feel shame that you know you have to have a surgery every now and then, something goes wrong, and it may not seem as big, and I'm like, oh my god, how will I explain this to people? Because it's not like an open-heart surgery, you know, it's not something that people know so much about that it's even difficult to explain yourself. And I think with FGM, that's why hidden disabilities badges are so handy because we have been handing loads of them at our hubs to FGM survivors, and a lot of women were like, Well, I don't have a paperwork saying I'm disabled. You know, I don't think I can even explain to the healthcare professionals that this is disability. I can't sit for too long, or I can't stand for too long, I need special measures. And she's like, it's impossible for me to travel. But this is a game changer. There are so many survivors who regularly give us feedback saying that since they've received the badge, their experience of you know traveling on a public transport, just to home from work, just massively improved because they don't have to explain, they don't have to look pregnant or they don't have to look sick or you know elderly in order to get a seat. People just see the badge and they just offer them a seat, then it's really nice for them to be able to have that support.

Chantal 24:07

Yeah, exactly. Because there is so much, I think as a society, we look and we judge people, sometimes consciously or unconsciously, and we make a judgment as to whether that person, if they're young, or then you know there's nothing wrong with you and why why you are why are you sitting in a priority seat and you just don't know the the pain that that person's experiencing. You can't get inside somebody else's body and feel their emotions and uh and pain points. So I was gonna ask you about different instances where the Sunflower would be would be valuable, but you've you've mentioned so public transport and at work, yeah.

Sema 24:47

So I mean we make adjustments as on when needed, but I mean you can see even mental health-wise, this office is designed very colourful. We always keep it warm because you know we're women-led, and 95% women in the office. We're all cold, let's face it. Yeah, we have been cold forever. Um, we have like low lights, so we never use the the violence of the you know the ceiling lamps. Oh my god, that should be legal.

Chantal 25:12

Yeah.

Sema 25:12

Um, we always have good coffee, tea, you know, some nice snacks. And if people need to take a break, at the back we have a wellness corner with like a very supportive cushion that you can put actually heated pads in. We have heated eye masks, we have soundballs, so you can just go and take a nap, and there's no shame in you doing that. No one will actually question if you want to not come to work that day and work from home. So I think workplaces need to be a little bit more just because you can't see something doesn't mean it's there.

Chantal 25:41

Yeah.

Sema 25:42

And anyone who's disabled will understand this. If you're having a pain-free day, you actually do question, wow, oh my god, is this gonna last? Is this how it's for everybody else? And I go around asking my husband and my friend, I'm like, is this how you live and you're not like about to die? And they're like, Yeah, okay. So it doesn't hurt, and you actually go and do your gym, and it could look like that. You could be a hyper person, you know, I cycle to work, but that doesn't mean that I'm not in pain. Yeah. You are you're you're pushing through every day, aren't you? And there are some days where I can't leave the bed and you know, that's okay, you're in pain. You're in pain, and you have to just, you know, do what it takes. You have to go to sauna or maybe just take a bath, whatever helps you if you have access to these things.

Chantal 26:24

Yeah. And if you're working in a traditional office environment, that's not what open to you, is it?

Sema 26:31

No, I mean, even the type of shoes sometimes they put on you, like you have to wear these types of shoes and Yeah. Yes, but that the types of shoes that you wear affects your posture. And I wear a heel quite regularly because I, you know, like wearing them and I find them comfortable. But if, you know, I've had a surgery recently, for example, on my foot, and I should be able to wear flat shoes for a few months if I want to, or just forever. You know, I think we boss people around too much at workplace. Yeah, but then people don't have the courage to actually come and say, actually, these are the things that are affecting me. What we did and worked for us was we held a focus group and every kind of disability was like a disabled circus in here. We had different types of disabilities, and everyone's like, I need this, I need that, I need that. The only thing is our building is not accessible

Shame Language And Men As Allies

Sema 27:18

by lift because they removed the lift, which is very annoying. Right. But that's the only thing. Other than that, I think we are actually trying to respond to everything else.

Chantal 27:27

I it's it's a really, really nice environment. I travelled up by the tube, train and tube. It's raining outside, and so I was kind of wet and a bit flustered when I came, but as soon as coming into the through the door, it's like you say, it's all subtle things, but they actually contribute to just dialing everything right down, making you feel calm, you're in a nice space which is not frenetic. So yeah, you've uh I mean that's what we have to do. We have to have conversations, we have to open dialogue. The Sunflower is a great tool for doing that. Um, and you know, wearing it at work when companies join and become members, it it just enables people to actually have a conversation and feel that they're in a safe space doing it. So, yeah, it's really important. So, anybody listening to our chat today, where can they find you and what sort of support and advice can vengers offer?

Sema 28:31

So you can find us on the revengers.co.uk or on our social media. Um, what we can offer is we offer quite extensive support to survivors or those at risk. So you could email us to I mean the number one request we really get is legal support. So people are going through things and you know they don't have the financial situation to actually fund that, you know, problem. And we refer women and their children to, you know, legal support, I be for you know divorce or modern clav slavery claims for any kind of social housing. Some people have problems at work. So we're not like, what does that have to do with FGM or you know forced marriage? No, we're just gonna help survivors of any form of gender-based violence. You don't even have to be FGM survivor. Because we have a quite big network of you know lawyers. Obviously, we're in the middle of the city of London, we have access to financial firms, to legal firms, and we do use that, you know, kind of power sharing with our community. I have seen the biggest request of support being housing and legal last year. So women need safe housing, they need a good job, they need to divorce often to say no to violence because you can't just get up and say no to violence. We can offer safe spaces, we host monthly workshops. I mean, today we have a henna workshop where we will do henna on our hands, and I won't be doing that because last year I did it and it didn't go in for two months. And people were like, Did you vote? Because I was so bad at colouring my fingers. But people will be doing henna, we'll talk about gender-based violence, we'll talk about issues in their families, their health, their well-being. It's very important for us to talk about these things. And then as and when we can help, often a lawyer goes a long, long way. And we have a lot of really lovely human beings who work in law firms and they want to do something meaningful, they want to support a survivor. So I think as well as that safe space and the confidence building, we also offer community to meet with each other. So often we'll see someone coming on their own really shy, you know, holding on to their back, and in an hour they're best friends with everyone, exchange numbers, and they have mum groups or friendship groups. So I think we do offer that in a really nice curated space.

Chantal 30:43

Yes. Yeah. I mean it's it's connection, it's connecting with somebody else who's been in a similar scenario to you and traveling down a similar path to you when I would imagine you've felt very, very alone up until that point.

Sema 30:58

So it's not something you can talk about with with someone you've just met. You know, often what survivors tell us is, you know, if I am to talk about my FGM story, the first reaction is, God, I don't know how to help you because that just sounds so severe that I don't even know how to respond to you. So it's not something they bring up at work. Yeah. It's not something they bring up to the friends they know for years. A lot of survivors just will not even talk about that or any other form of gender-based violence. They'll go through years and years and years not talking about it. So I think we make that point very easy. But when you met people who've been through exactly what you're feeling, I think the peer support to me is the number one thing that I'm very proud of that we offer at Vavengers

Sunflower Lanyards Workplace Support And Help

Sema 31:38

because I literally see women I've met going from feeling very shy and shamed to being these fantastic outgoing human beings who have received the help and support themselves, but then they are there for the community. You know, the next workshop they'll come with a cake and tea and say, Well, how can I help others? Because I feel so confident now and I actually got rid of that shame that I'm talking about. I think it never goes away 100%, but it's good to be around people. Yeah because you know they are along the journey. It's like, you know, I I know people who have lupus, for example, and they're in their late 40s, and I'm like, has this happened to you before? And you know, she goes, Oh yeah, that that started happening to me in my 30s. This is exactly what you're gonna do. So I think it's really good to have that peer support, especially on a subject where even so I would struggle to wrap their heads around because it's so complex. Yes, yeah.

Chantal 32:28

All right, it sounds like a beautiful, beautiful thing. And then just this is a global issue. So when we do the show notes, we'll try and include some global um support groups as well. But for the UK, you're headquartered here in London. But are you doing are you reaching out to the community across the UK?

Sema 32:50

So our direct support, if it's online, anyone could email and ask for stuff, then we'll try to link them. But our in-person workshops are in London, it's because we are a very small charity. And globally we do work with a network called Global Action to end FGMC. And every charity from different continents who works on FGM is actually a member of that. So people can look that up and see what charity is in their region because we do campaigning work together, they will have the knowledge and the you know support points in their local countries. It's a really good network. That's brilliant.

Chantal 33:21

Well, thank you so much, Sema. This has been really, really actually mind-blowing, upsetting. Um, you know, it is really upsetting to hear and to kind of visualise what young girls and women are having to go through. But I mean, all power to you and your volunteers and everyone that works with you because yeah, you're doing an amazing job.

Sema 33:44

Yeah, and if anybody's in London and they want to volunteer, you know, they can always reach out and we'll find them a role to play in this nice place. Excellent. Thank you. Thank you.

Chantal 33:54

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Speaker 34:07

You don't have to say why, you just need more time. Like a field of dreams full of seeds that need love and care to grow. Those yellow petals that follow the sun are giving everyone a bit of home. When some days get a little tough, we'll help you find that song and lift you up.