Health Initiatives Mission (HIM) believe that “Love Heals”. Life is hard for the Pokot tribe and only love can heal the unseen injuries sustained by most vulnerable among them: the women and children.
As a young girl, Mwana Lokeno (HIM co-founder) was forced to undergo Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) as a condition for her father to pay for her education. The experience was so traumatizing and life changing that Mwana became determined to do something about it. After graduating from nursing school in Kenya, Mwana worked with an organization whose sole aim was to educate the Pokot Community about the complications associated with FGM. She personally helped counsel women who were leaking urine and feces due to FGM complications during delivery. More often than not, these women suffer in silence and carry deep emotional, as well as physical, scars resulting from FGM. Because their injuries cause them to smell terribly, these woman are rejected by their husbands and loved ones. Some even become unable to have additional children because of the irreversible damage done to their uterus. |