”What is good for women is good for the community,” Ethopian social entrepreneur and community activist Dr. Bogaletch [said in an interview] sixteen years ago … “What I discovered in our work … is not changing the whole society at once, but to change one person at a time. And it works.”
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2011
Former marathon runner and epidemiologist Bogaletch Gebre, celebrated for saving tens of thousands of girls from bridal rape/abduction marriages and injury or death from female genital mutilation in Ethiopia, died November 6 in Los Angeles at age 59.
Determined to stop female cutting in Ethiopia after it killed her sister and nearly claimed her own life, Dr Gebre fought to become educated, and in 1997 set up the charitable NGO Kembatti Mentti Gezzimma (KMG Ethiopia) —Kembatta Women Standing Together— to instigate social change through "community conversations" involving everyone, from young men to elders and religious leaders. KMG replaced traditional cutting ceremonies with "whole body celebrations" for uncut girls.
After UNICEF's 2008 survey in Kembatta-Tembarro found 97% of the population opposed FGM — a practice that had been universal only a decade before— anti-FGM organizations everywhere began replicating KMG's model.
Boge (pronounced Bo-gay) as she was known, grew up in the early 1960s in a small farming village in the Kembatta district of southern Ethiopia. At age 12, she survived FGM. With an uncle’s help doing her familial chores and covering for her, she attended classes to read and write. Finally with her father’s reluctant permission when family work allowed, she ran 6 miles to and then home from the nearest primary school, the first girl in the locale to exceed 4th grade. An extraordinary student from the start, she was doing translation of court documents for her village by the age of nine. In a culture that shows a man respect by calling him for his first-born son, and a woman for her first-born daughter, peers began calling the family patriarch “Father of Bogaletch.”
Winning a scholarship to the sole women’s boarding school in Addis Ababa, Gebre went on to attend Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel, on full scholarship, saving her stipend up in order to build her family the first corrugated-tin roofed house in the village, and witnessed the ripple effect as neighbors came from miles around “to see what a woman could do.”
In the U.S. as a Fulbright scholar in the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and later at the University of California, Los Angeles, Gebre launched her first charitable organization, Development Through Education — it provided $26,000 worth of technical books to students in Ethiopian high schools and universities. To raise funds for this and other early projects, she ran marathon races.
After 13 years away from home, with a PhD in epidemiology, Gebre returned to work in Ethiopia.
Following an initial public speech on the taboo topic of HIV/AIDS, Gebre realized that she would need to establish credibility with the community before she could effect change, and so set herself to correcting problems that were pointed out to her, providing necessary supplies to build a bridge that would allow regional children to reach the nearest school, and traders to reach the local market. Once the bridge was built, she and [a] sister formed KGM Ethiopia, opening community consultations village by village to protect the rights of women.”
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Emma Lightowlers, spokeswoman for 28TooMany, which takes it name from the 28 African countries where FGM is endemic, said she was optimistic about the future of Ethiopia and the new possibilities for human rights pioneered by Bogaletch.
"It's still about getting religious leaders on board, involving communities, identifying key influencers, and making sure they hear from people that are respected," she said.
"It's about making sure everyone is part of it."
Faiza Mohamed, Africa director of the advocacy group Equality Now, said Boge Gebre brought “a wave of hope and change" to the African community.
Years ago, Dr. Gebre was quoted,
“In the long run, stronger women create stronger communities, stronger women create a stronger nation, and stronger women create a stronger Africa.”
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And a better world.
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