Awareness! Against FGM

During my work at the Gugu Women Lab (Cape Town) together with women from South Africa and immigrants from different African countries, I've lived one of the most uplifting professional and human experience I've ever done. Writing and reflecting on civil rights, reading and confronting ideas and point of views on the changes of the society on a global scale, has been such a huge experience that it would seem too limited trying to describe it in few words.
What I can say is that one of the themes that came up during the months of work is the FGM, an experience that some of the partecipants of the group had experienced in person. Our has been a writing group aimed to rise awareness on human rights, so we wrote together a theatre piece, a monologue, that speaks about the horrible practice of FGM . Our aim is clear: promote awareness among men and women, institutions, leaders, organizations to stop this practice.

The piece 's title is THE CUT, this year I translated it in Italian with the title LO STRAPPO and it will be on tour in Italy starting the 5th March 2013. In Italy I'll be accompanied in the performance by an Italian actress, Nella Bozzano, and this is lovely to make the whole thing transcultural.

I''m trying to get this work also around Europe and also in the States, in Africa, South America and in any other country of the world to promote human rights and support the cause of millions of women who are still victim of this brutal practice.

For more information about dates and venues and also for who would like to host the performance you can visit http://valentinammaka.blogspot.com and write to valentinammaka(AT)gmail(DOT)com

photocredit by Lorenzo Moscia