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Blossom Beyond Borders, Kapenguria (2026)

25/09/2026

A Different Kind of Conversation

During one of our recent KOMESHA FGM SASA! Year 2 school forums, a boy stood up and shared something that made us pause.

He spoke about boys supporting girls who refuse FGM and child marriage. He spoke about reporting threats instead of remaining silent. He spoke about the importance of education in building a different future for young people in Masol.

Then he said something that stayed with us:

“Now it is our responsibility to teach the younger boys about the effects of FGM, especially on the girls.”

That is the kind of conversation we want to create.

Not simply telling young people that FGM is harmful, but giving them space to ask what their own responsibility is.

Because harmful practices can be passed from one generation to another.

So can the courage to challenge them.

This young person's reflection does not mean that change has already happened. It is one voice, one moment, one emerging commitment.

But it reminds us why these conversations matter.

When young people begin to see themselves not only as affected by harmful norms, but as capable of challenging them, a different conversation begins.

Voice from a KOMESHA FGM SASA! Year 2 school forum in West Pokot.

24/09/2026

Sometimes the most important thing we hear in the field is not what we expected.

During our recent ! Year 2 school forums, we sat with girls and boys in 8 schools across West Pokot.

More observations from the field stayed with us:

Harmful practices are often surrounded by silence.
Learners spoke about the fear of being laughed at, isolated, labelled disrespectful or seen as weak when someone challenges what others consider “normal.” Breaking that silence requires safe spaces where young people can speak without being judged.

Many young people know something is wrong, but may not know what to do next.
The forums revealed the importance of moving beyond messages about the dangers of FGM. Learners need practical knowledge: Who do I tell? Where do I go? How can I help a friend without putting her at greater risk?

Girls need support, not blame, when they resist harmful practices.
One of the clearest messages from the discussions was that a girl should not be punished, isolated or harmed for questioning an expectation or refusing a harmful practice. Her safety and rights must come first.

These conversations reminded us that ending FGM is not simply about changing knowledge.

It is about creating the confidence, relationships and support systems that allow girls and boys to question harmful norms, speak safely and act differently.

Eight schools later, we are listening more closely, and taking those lessons into the next conversation. 💚

Blossom Beyond Borders CBO and ActionAid Kenya
Together, we can create spaces where girls are safe to learn, speak and choose their future.

21/09/2026

Eight Schools. Eight Conversations. One Powerful Reminder.

We set out to reach 7 schools through the ! Year 2 girls’ and boys’ forums.

We reached 8.

But beyond the numbers, the conversations with learners left us with three powerful observations:

1️⃣ FGM is not only a girls’ issue.
Boys are also growing up with expectations about what it means to be a “real man”, including how they should relate to girls and respond to harmful traditions. They need space to question these expectations too.

2️⃣ The pressure on girls goes beyond FGM.
Learners spoke about expectations that girls should remain quiet, obey without questioning, carry most household responsibilities and eventually marry at a certain age. Understanding these pressures helps us see the wider environment in which harmful practices can continue.

3️⃣ Knowledge must lead to agency.
The most important question is not only “Do young people know that FGM is harmful?” but “What can they do when they see a girl at risk?”
Across the forums, learners identified ways to challenge harmful peer conversations, support girls, seek help and report threats through safe channels.

These were not just awareness sessions.

They were spaces for girls and boys to question, listen, reflect and discover their own role in creating safer futures.

And our work continues.

Blossom Beyond Borders
Working with communities to help girls blossom beyond harmful barriers.

04/09/2026

The journey continues.

After a year of working alongside communities in Masol to challenge harmful beliefs and practices surrounding FGM, we are preparing to continue the journey.

KOMESHA FGM SASA! Year 2 will build on the conversations, relationships and community action already underway.

In the coming months, we will continue engaging girls and boys in schools, bringing women together for reflection, creating spaces for intergenerational dialogue, and working alongside cultural leaders, religious leaders and male champions.

Because lasting change does not happen in one meeting, one conversation or one year.

It takes communities willing to listen, reflect, question harmful norms and choose a different future for their girls.

Masol, the journey continues.

02/09/2026

WHICH INSTITUTIONS REPRODUCE THE NORM — AND WHICH CAN DISRUPT IT?

For the past few days, we have been asking questions that take us beneath the surface of FGM and child marriage.

Today, we arrive at perhaps one of the most important:

What role do our institutions play?

Because harmful practices do not exist only inside families.

They exist within the spaces and systems that shape people's lives.

Schools.
Religious institutions.
Traditional leadership structures.
Health facilities.
Justice systems.
Local administration.
Community organisations.
Media.
Families.

Each of these can either reinforce a harmful norm or help to change it.

A school can be a place where a girl is protected, listened to and kept in education.
But it can also become a place where her experiences are ignored or where gender stereotypes are quietly reproduced.

A religious institution can challenge FGM and child marriage.
But it can also remain silent when harmful practices are justified in the name of morality or tradition.

A traditional leader can use authority to preserve an expectation, or use that same authority to challenge it.

A health worker can identify risk and respond.

A police officer can take a report seriously or dismiss it as a family matter.

A local administrator can intervene when a girl is at risk or fail to act until the harm has already occurred.

A community organisation can create safe spaces and support families or unintentionally reproduce the same power structures it is trying to change.

This is why I believe we need to stop asking only:

“What should the community do?”

And start asking:

“What are our institutions doing?”

Are they protecting girls?
Are they listening to them?
Are they responding when someone reports a risk?
Are policies actually implemented?
Are people in positions of authority held accountable?
Do girls know where to seek help?
Do those responsible for responding have the capacity and courage to act?

And perhaps the most important question:

Where is the institutional power that could be used to disrupt the system?

As ! prepares to move deeper into the last-mile villages of Masol Ward, this question is especially important.

We cannot place the entire burden of change on families and communities while ignoring the institutions that have authority, resources, influence and responsibility.

Ending FGM and child marriage requires more than changing individual attitudes.

It requires institutions to examine themselves.

To ask where they have been silent.
Where they have reinforced harmful norms.
Where they have failed to protect.
And where they can use their power differently.

Because systems do not change simply because people know they are harmful.

Systems change when the people and institutions within them begin to exercise power differently.

That is the deeper conversation we want to carry forward.

Seven questions.
One deeper challenge:

If we truly want to end FGM and child marriage, what must each of us, and each institution, do differently?

Let us look beyond the surface.
Let us question the systems.
Let us change the systems.

KOMESHA FGM SASA!

01/09/2026

HOW ARE MASCULINITIES IMPLICATED?

When we talk about FGM and child marriage, the conversation can sometimes become a conversation about women and girls.

Mothers.
Grandmothers.
Girls.
Women who perform the cutting.

But where are the boys and men in the picture?

And more importantly:

What ideas about being a man help sustain the expectations placed on girls?
What does a boy learn about what makes a woman “respectable”?
What does he learn about sexuality?
About obedience?
About marriage?
About control?
About what a husband is entitled to expect from his wife?
What happens when a girl refuses to conform to those expectations?

These questions matter because FGM and child marriage do not exist separately from broader ideas about gender and power.

A girl may be told that FGM makes her respectable.
That marriage makes her a “complete” woman.
That obedience is a virtue.
That her sexuality must be controlled.

But we also need to ask what boys are being taught alongside these messages.

Are boys being taught that masculinity means authority over girls?
Are they taught that a wife should be submissive?
Are they taught to value girls according to whether they conform to certain expectations?
Are boys given the opportunity to imagine a different kind of manhood, one built on respect, equality, responsibility and partnership rather than control?

This does not mean blaming men and boys for FGM and child marriage.

It means recognising that gender norms affect everyone, and that men and boys have a role in changing them.

A father can become the person who says, “My daughter will not be cut.”
A brother can refuse to ridicule a girl who chooses differently.
A young man can challenge his peers.
A husband can reject the idea that his wife owes him control over her body.
A community leader can use his authority to protect girls rather than police their choices.

So perhaps the question is not simply:

“How do we involve men in ending FGM?”

It is:

“What kind of men and boys do we need to nurture if girls are to live with dignity, bodily autonomy and equal opportunities?”

As we prepare for KOMESHA FGM SASA! in the last-mile villages of Masol Ward, this conversation matters.

Because we cannot transform expectations placed on girls without also examining the expectations placed on boys.

Ending FGM and child marriage requires more than changing what girls are expected to become.

It requires changing what boys are taught to expect from girls, and what boys are taught about their own power.

The future we want for girls is also a future in which boys grow up understanding that strength does not mean control, masculinity does not mean domination, and respect begins with recognising another person's right to choose.

Let us look beyond the surface.
Let us question the gender norms beneath the practice.
Let us make room for healthier masculinities.

30/08/2026

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A GIRL RESISTS?

A girl says:
“I don't want to be cut.”

A family says:
“We will not marry our daughter off.”

We may see these as moments of courage.

But what happens next?

This is a question we must ask if we are serious about ending FGM and child marriage.

Because resistance does not happen in a vacuum.

A girl who refuses FGM may face pressure from relatives or peers.
A girl who refuses marriage may be threatened, isolated or forced to leave home.
A parent who protects a daughter may face accusations of disrespecting elders, abandoning tradition or bringing shame to the family.
A family that chooses differently may discover that saying NO is easier than living with the consequences of that decision.

And this is where prevention and protection must meet.

We cannot tell girls to resist and then leave them alone to deal with the consequences.

We cannot tell families to abandon harmful practices without asking whether there is a safe place to go when resistance puts a girl at risk.

We cannot celebrate a girl's courage while ignoring the systems that may punish her for exercising it.

So the questions become:
Who protects the girl when she says no?
Where can she go?
Who believes her?
Who stands with her family?
What happens when the person putting her at risk is someone with greater authority than she has?

And perhaps the most important question:
Have we built enough protection around girls for resistance to become a realistic option?

This is why safe spaces, trusted adults, schools, protection mechanisms, legal pathways, psychosocial support and community allies matter.

They are not separate from FGM prevention.

They are part of what makes prevention possible.

As we prepare for KOMESHA FGM SASA! in the last-mile villages of Masol Ward, we want to look beyond the moment when a girl says NO and ask what happens in the hours, days and months afterwards.

Because the goal cannot simply be to produce courageous girls.

The goal must be to build families, communities and systems strong enough to stand with them.

A girl should not have to choose between her safety and her future simply because she chose to protect her own body.

Let us look beyond the surface.
Let us protect those who resist.
Let us make saying NO safer.

26/08/2026

WHAT KEEPS THE PRACTICE GOING?

Sometimes we ask:

“Why don’t people just stop?”

It sounds like a simple question.

But harmful practices rarely continue simply because people choose them in isolation.

They continue because they can become woven into the ordinary systems through which people secure belonging, status, marriage, economic security, family reputation and social acceptance.

Consider what happens when marriage is closely connected to a girl’s perceived respectability.

When FGM is associated with being considered “ready” for marriage.

When families fear that an uncircumcised daughter may be rejected.

When bridewealth contributes to household economic security.

When refusing a practice can bring shame, gossip or exclusion.

When people who conform are rewarded with acceptance while those who challenge the norm carry the consequences.

At that point, FGM and child marriage are no longer simply individual choices.

They have become part of a system of incentives and expectations.

This is why awareness alone may not be enough.

A girl can know that FGM is harmful.

A mother can know that early marriage can interrupt her daughter's education.

A father can understand the risks.

And yet the family may still feel trapped by the social and economic realities surrounding them.

So perhaps the better question is not:

“Why don't they stop?”

But:

“What makes continuing the practice seem necessary, useful, safer or more acceptable than abandoning it?”

And then we must go one step further:

What alternatives can we create?

If marriage provides economic security, what other pathways can provide security?

If conformity provides belonging, how do we create belonging for families who choose differently?

If FGM is tied to ideas about a girl's respectability, how do we challenge those ideas without simply replacing one form of social control with another?

If families fear losing status, what would it take for protecting girls to become a source of respect rather than shame?

These are not easy questions.

But if we want to change deeply rooted practices, we must understand the systems that make them sustainable.

As we prepare for # ! in the last-mile villages of Masol Ward, this is the deeper work we want to engage in.

Not simply asking communities to stop.

But asking:

What needs to change so that protecting girls becomes the safer, more respected and more sustainable choice?

Because lasting change happens when we do more than challenge a practice.

We change the conditions that keep reproducing it.

26/08/2026

WHO BEARS THE COST OF ABANDONMENT?

Imagine a family makes a decision.

They decide their daughter will not undergo FGM.

They want her to remain in school. They want her to grow up without being cut. They believe they are doing what is right.

From the outside, this looks like the end of the story.

But it may actually be the beginning of another difficult one.

What happens when relatives disagree?
What happens when neighbours begin to talk?
What happens when the girl is told she is different?
What happens when a family fears that refusing FGM could affect their daughter's marriage prospects?
What happens when parents who want to protect their daughter have to defend that decision repeatedly?
What happens when the social cost of saying NO is immediate, while the benefits of that decision may only become visible years later?

This is an important part of the conversation we often miss.

We tell families to abandon FGM and child marriage.

But who carries the cost of that abandonment?

Too often, it is the very people we are asking to change.

The girl may carry the burden of stigma.
The family may carry social pressure.
Parents may fear rejection or isolation.
A girl resisting child marriage may lose the security of her home.
A family breaking with an established expectation may have to negotiate relationships, status and economic realities.

This does not mean that harmful practices should be preserved because abandonment is difficult.

It means that prevention must take seriously what resistance costs people.

If we want families and girls to choose differently, we must help create conditions in which choosing differently is safe, possible and sustainable.

That means asking:

What happens to a girl when she says no?
What happens to the family that stands with her?
Who protects them?
Who supports them?
Who helps them withstand the pressure?

And perhaps the most important question:

Can we genuinely expect communities to abandon a practice without addressing the social and economic costs that may come with abandonment?

As ! moves into the last-mile villages of Masol Ward, these are the deeper questions we need to be prepared to explore.

Because ending FGM and child marriage is not simply about asking people to abandon a practice.

It is also about making it possible for them to live well after they do.

Let us look beyond the surface.
Let us understand the cost of resistance.
Let us build the support that makes change possible.

25/08/2026

WHO BENEFITS?

When we ask the hard question “Who benefits?”, we begin to look beyond the practice itself and examine the systems that help keep FGM and child marriage in place.

Benefits are not always financial.

They can be social acceptance, family honour, status, belonging, authority, control over girls’ sexuality, continuation of tradition, avoidance of shame or exclusion, marriageability, or economic security through bridewealth.

And different people may experience these benefits differently.

A family may believe that conformity protects its reputation.
An elder may see the continuation of a practice as preserving social order and authority.
A man may have been taught that a “proper” woman must conform to particular exectations.
A practitioner may gain status, respect or income.
A family facing economic hardship may see marriage as providing security for a daughter or the household.

None of this makes FGM or child marriage acceptable.

It helps us understand why simply telling people that the practice is harmful may not be enough to change it.

As we prepare for KOMESHA FGM SASA! in the last-mile villages of Masol Ward, we must be willing to look beneath the surface.

Who gains when girls conform?
Who loses when they resist?
What would people fear losing if the practice disappeared?
And what would need to change so that abandoning FGM and child marriage becomes possible without losing dignity, belonging or economic security?

Until we understand what sustains a harmful practice, we may struggle to dismantle the system that reproduces it.

Let us ask better questions.
Let us look beyond the surface.
Let us change the systems.

Blossom Beyond Borders

25/09/2026

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