My name is Sally Jepchumba. I am a survivor of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), a teacher, a mother, and the proud Co-Founder of Light a Girl Initiative—a Community-Based Organization born from a deep place of pain, healing, and purpose.

Light a Girl was founded after I attended a Survivors of FGM Leadership Training in 2022—a transformative experience that shifted the course of my life. Before that training, I had never imagined that anyone, anywhere, cared to listen to our stories as survivors. In my community, silence is sacred, and breaking it is taboo. Speaking out—especially as someone who has undergone FGM—is almost unthinkable. You’re expected to be grateful, to believe that what was done to you was for your own good. Even those closest to you—your family—see it as a proud cultural rite of passage. I, too, believed that lie… until I didn’t.

That training was a turning point. It was as if I reclaimed something I didn’t even know I had lost—my voice, my power, my truth. I realized that I had been violated, not initiated. That FGM was not a tradition to be celebrated, but a deep wound inflicted on our dignity and human rights.

I thought of all the girls and women like me—hidden in homes, schools, universities, villages—carrying silent scars and unanswered questions. I wanted them to know: what was done to them was not culture, it was a cruelty. It was not tradition, it was trauma.

Had someone told me, at 11 years old, that FGM was a violation of my rights, I would have said no to it. But no one did. The people who loved me—my mother, my grandmother’s sister who cut me—believed they were preparing me for womanhood. They were repeating a cycle they had been victims of.

I have since forgiven them. They were not perpetrators—they were products of a misinformed system. But I made a promise: no girl in my family, or my community, should ever have to endure what I did—not if I can stop it.

That is why we founded Light a Girl Initiative. Because this fight is bigger than one voice. Together, we are raising awareness, fostering healing, and standing tall for every girl who deserves to grow up free, whole, and empowered.