U.S. Sahiyo Board Member Spotlight: A. Renee Bergstrom, EdD
Sahiyo’s U.S. Advisory Board provides strategic advice to the management of Sahiyo and ensures that we continue fulfilling our mission to empower communities to end female genital cutting, and create positive social change through dialogue, education, and collaboration based on community involvement. For November, we are featuring A. Renee Bergstrom, EdD, a survivor who has worked as an advocate for the abandonment of female genital cutting for decades. 1) Can you tell us a bit about your background? I have been interested in using my story to help end Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C) for most of my adult life. I first became involved internationally in 1981 when I applied for a grant from the Women’s Desk of Lutheran World Federation that led to my spending two weeks in Geneva, Switzerland. I spoke with leaders involved in the FGM/C issue, including Marie Assaad, Egypt’s gentle warrior, who was then Deputy Secretary General of the World Council of Churches. The timing was not right politically for my voice to be heard. I would have been seen as another Western woman interfering in other cultures. A group of African women told me to go home and deal with my country’s cultural issues and then come back and compare notes on culture change strategies. This challenge inspired me to continue my college education. I graduated with two bachelor’s degrees from Winona State University in 1988 and 1989, a Master’s degree in adult education from the University of Minnesota in 1992, and a doctorate in education in leadership from Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota in 2009. My professional career was with the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. I served as a phlebotomist for four years, a certified pulmonary function technologist for seven years, and as a patient education specialist for twenty-three years. I also served on the Mayo Clinic Program in Professionalism and Ethics Communication in Healthcare Faculty. I retired from Mayo in 2012. I was an adjunct professor in Women and Gender Studies at Winona State University in 2010 and 2011. In 2008, I became involved with the Academy of Communication in Healthcare and graduated as ACH Faculty in 2017. My female justice advocacy included mentoring a dynamic young Somali woman, Filsan Ali. In 2015, we produced a brochure for pregnant, infibulated Somali women to share with their physicians or midwives to promote shared decision-making regarding labor and delivery. We distributed the brochures throughout the United States. In the summer of 2016, Filsan and I were interviewed by John Chua, PhD, for his documentary, The Cut. I participated in the End Violence Against Girls Summit on FGM/C in Washington, D.C. on December 2, 2016. On the same day The Guardian published my story including a portion of Dr. Chua’s documentary. I have since been interviewed by several others, including photojournalist Meeri Matilda Koutaniemi of Finland who is writing a book about FGM/C survivors. After going public, two other white Christian North American FGM/C survivors reached out to me. They are younger than my children. One woman came to my home, and we worked with the other by phone to write an article that we seek to publish. Although most Christian denominations do not condone FGM/C, we hope to reach Christian readers from churches that do. Our stories may help others have the courage to speak. Christians need to face the damage done by misinterpreting Biblical passages in order to control women. 2) When did you first get involved with Sahiyo and what opportunities have you been involved in? I was invited to participate in the Sahiyo Stories in Berkeley, California, in May 2018. I so appreciated the opportunity to decide for myself which aspect of my story to tell and illustrate. After much contemplation, I chose to focus on being silenced because it had the greatest long term impact on my life. The Story Center staff provided excellent professional guidance in shaping the videos. The shared community spirit was an additional blessing and key to our ability to complete the daunting process of revealing such personal parts of our lives. I participated with Mariya Taher in showing Sahiyo Stories at the End Violence Against Women Conference at Lesley University, Cambridge, Massachusetts on November 9, 2018. I practiced my ACH Winter Course workshop that uses Sahiyo videos at the Knowledge and Evaluation Research (KER) unit at Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN. I was encouraged to discuss with appropriate faculty the inclusion of the videos in Mayo Medical School curriculum on January 9, 2019. I facilitated an ACH Winter Course workshop entitled Patient Engagement Through Brief Focused Videos that featured our Sahiyo stories on January 31, 2019. It was well received, although participants were quite overwhelmed by the content. 3) How has your involvement impacted your life? I feel so blessed knowing that my story is now seen as helpful to young women who are standing up to their political, cultural and religious leaders to end FGM/C worldwide. Also, being free of the burden of silence has made me holistically healthier. I experience an ineffable spiritual uplifting. 4) What pieces of wisdom would you share with new volunteers or community members who are interested in supporting Sahiyo? Sahiyo has wisely broadened their scope to include other cultures besides their original focus on the Dawoodi Bohra community. Universal attempts to control women’s sexuality is something for which we women of the world must unite.
Sahiyo U.S. Advisory Board Spotlight: Melody Joy Eckardt
As Sahiyo’s U.S. operations and programs have grown, in 2018, we invited various individuals from a host of backgrounds and professions to join our inaugural U.S. Advisory Board. The advisory board provides strategic advice to the management of Sahiyo and ensures that we continue fulfilling our mission to empower communities to end female genital cutting (FGC) and create positive social change through dialogue, education, and collaboration based on community involvement. This month, we are pleased to highlight Melody Joy Eckardt, who has graciously agreed to serve on the U.S. Advisory Board. 1) Can you tell us a bit about your background? I am an obstetrician and gynecologist who specializes in global health. I graduated from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, did my ob/gyn residency at Tufts New England Medical Center in Boston and practiced ob/gyn on the South Shore of Massachusetts before returning to get my Masters in Health from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. After that time I began working internationally with the Division of Global Health and Human Rights at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) on issues related to women’s reproductive health and maternal mortality in developing country contexts. I also had a faculty position in obstetrics and gynecology at Boston Medical Center (BMC) with a focus on Women’s Refugee Health. It was at BMC that I learned about Female Genital Cutting (FGC), and learned to do surgical procedures and specialized treatment for this issue. I now work full-time in global health at the Division of Global Innovation (Formerly the Division of Global Health and Human Rights) at MGH to train health care providers around the world on maternal health emergencies. 2) When did you first get involved with Sahiyo and what at opportunities have you been involved in? I met Mariya through our work advocating for the FGC law in Massachusetts. We had the chance to testify and speak at a few engagements together. Through these times, I learned more about Sahiyo and the great work advocating to stop FGC with an emphasis on storytelling, which is such a powerful tool! 3) How has your involvement impacted your life? Sahiyo opened my eyes to just how far-reaching the practice of FGC is around the world. So many women are not even counted among the statistics. Furthermore, I am so inspired by women who join together to tell their stories, empower one another, and fight for a kinder, more respectful future for our daughters. 4) What pieces of wisdom would you share with new volunteers or community members who are interested in supporting Sahiyo? You are joining a group of amazing people with the vision to truly change the world for future women. Don’t ever forget what a privilege it is to be part of such an amazing team and that your cause is just and worth every ounce of effort you give it.
Sahiyo U.S. Advisory Board Spotlight: Joanne Golden
As Sahiyo’s U.S. operations and programs have grown, we invited various individuals from a host of backgrounds and professions to join our U.S. Advisory Board. The advisory board provides strategic advice to the management of Sahiyo and ensures that we continue fulfilling our mission to empower communities to end female genital cutting and create positive social change through dialogue, education, and collaboration based on community involvement. This month, we are pleased to highlight Joanne Golden who graciously serves as a member of our U.S. Advisory Board. 1) Can you tell us a bit about your background? I was born and (mostly) raised in Massachusetts, but I got the travel bug at age 4, when my dad was in the U.S. Army and stationed at the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) in Belgium. My mom, brother, and I were able to accompany him and we lived there for three years, where I attended school with children from other countries, learned about different cultures and languages, and traveled between most Western European countries (not Eastern Europe, as it was still during the Cold War). When I returned to the U.S., I knew my perspective was already broader than that of my peers and I became curious about history, politics, geography, and languages. I was determined to be the first female Secretary of State in the United States! Well, that didn’t happen, as Madeleine Albright beat me to it, and other opportunities came my way. I attended Boston University and received my Bachelor of Arts in International Relations with a minor in French (1990), spent my junior year abroad in Grenoble, France, and I was invited to my friend’s wedding in Egypt, where I spent six weeks as a guest of her family and friends. I could not have been happier! My career trajectory did not go as planned as I moved towards financial services, rather than the foreign service, and I worked for 15 years at State Street Corporation in Massachusetts, during which I attended Boston University Graduate School of Management and received my Masters in Business Administration (1997). However, after serious reflection and research, in 2006, I decided to change the direction of my life and pursue a career in public service by going to law school, and I graduated with Pro Bono Honors from Suffolk University Law School in 2009 and was the 1st recipient of the Suffolk Law School Pro Bono Exemplary Service Award. During law school, I focused my electives on civil and human rights issues, particularly on human trafficking, children and women’s rights, for which I wrote a paper entitled “Impact of China’s One Child Policy and Cultural Gender Preference on Girl Child Discrimination and Mortality In China.” For a year after graduation, I worked with two NGOs and the Massachusetts Anti-Human Trafficking Coalition, in order to support state specific anti-human trafficking legislation, which went into effect in 2012, and to study the demand-side of sex trafficking. I am currently a federal attorney for the Social Security Administration’s Office of Hearing Operations since 2010, an active member of the Women’s Bar Association of Massachusetts (WBA). Since May 2013, I am part of a working group that researched, drafted, and advocates for state-level legislation to ban the practice of Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C) in Massachusetts. I am also a fierce Boston sports fan. I study the Irish language and violin in what little time I have left over, and I recently got married to Greg, who regularly tells me how proud he is of the work I do. 2) When did you first get involved with Sahiyo and what opportunities have you been involved in? I first became involved with Sahiyo about three years ago, through my interactions with Mariya Taher, who joined the WBA’s FGM/C legislative working group to help us advocate for state-level legislation to ban the practice of FGM/C in Massachusetts. I was introduced to Mariya on a monthly phone call led by Equality Now, which was trying to bring together a coalition of legal and medical experts, non-profits, federal and state law enforcement, and victim-survivors across the U.S. and between the U.S. and other countries, to eradicate FGM/C by 2030. Mariya brought valuable insight to our working group as a non-attorney, survivor, and founding member of Sahiyo. She showed us the human side and cost of FGM/C for girls and women. It is through Mariya that we made deeper contacts within the Bohra and Somali communities in Boston. We have new contacts with American-born women who are also cut, and we garnered more legislative support for the Massachusetts FGM/C bill with her testimony and willingness to tell such a deeply personal story. With Mariya and Sahiyo, we also successfully initiated a change.org petition to support the MA state legislation with over 300,000 signatures. I have admired her efforts to give a voice to girls and women through the Sahiyo Stories project. I also became a member of the Sahiyo U.S. Advisory board last year, and participated in our successful Boston FGM/C roundtable in April 2019. 3) How has your involvement impacted your life? As I explained previously, in 2006, I decided to change the direction of my life and pursue a career in public service by going to law school. I followed my head, my heart, and my conscience to law school and focused on issues of civil rights, children and women’s rights, during my studies, but I could never have known that it would lead me here. When people ask me what I do, I always reply that I am an attorney for the federal government. But I also add that I fight for the rights of women and children against being trafficked and being irreparably harmed, physically and mentally, by FGM/C. I am proud and humbled by Sahiyo’s mission and that Mariya asked me and trusted me to be part of the Sahiyo U.S. Advisory Board. 4) What pieces of wisdom would you share with new volunteers or community members who are interested in supporting Sahiyo? If you don’t know what you
Sahiyo U.S. Advisory Board Spotlight: Zehra Patwa
As Sahiyo’s U.S. operations and programs have grown, in 2018, we invited various individuals from a host of backgrounds and professions to join our inaugural U.S. Advisory Board. The advisory board provides strategic advice to the management of Sahiyo and ensures that we continue fulfilling our mission to empower communities to end Female Genital Cutting and create positive social change through dialogue, education, and collaboration based on community involvement. This month, we are pleased to highlight Zehra Patwa, who has graciously agreed to serve as the Vice-Chair for our inaugural U.S. Advisory Board. 1) Can you tell us a bit about your background? I was born and brought up in the UK and moved to the US in the 1990s. I was born into the Dawoodi Bohra community and remain there with my family here in the US. In 2012, I saw a video of a Bohra woman talking about her khatna (FGM/C) and it opened up a whole world that I had previously been oblivious to. At that same time, I found out that I, too, had undergone the cut at the age of 7 but I have no recollection of it. Despite having no memory of my experience, I decided I could not be silent about this practice in what I had always known to be an educated and progressive community with strong women role models. I co-founded WeSpeakOut with several other women who were determined to end khatna in the Bohra community and we have helped open up the conversation on this once secret practice. We have also shed light on the practice in the Indian Supreme Court and hope to have an anti-FGM/C law on the books in the near future, I am also involved on the Board of IRIS, a refugee resettlement agency working to help refugees make a successful life in the US. I feel very strongly that we need to see each other as human beings first rather than getting bogged down with which group we identify with. 2) When did you first get involved with Sahiyo and what opportunities have you been involved in? When I first got involved with activism, it was in a Whatsapp group with the founders of Sahiyo and several other women discussing our khatna experiences and encouraging each other to speak out against this injustice. Since then, my connection with Sahiyo has blossomed! Sahiyo and WeSpeakOut have done several campaigns together, notably, Each One Reach One, where we developed helpful guides to start the conversation about khatna between friends and family. I have attended several Sahiyo retreats, as well as participating in the wonderful Sahiyo Stories workshop where I created a video describing my feelings toward the reactions I have faced for speaking out about khatna. 3) How has your involvement impacted your life? Finding out about this practice in my community in my forties set me off on a path of activism that I would never have foreseen. Working with Sahiyo has taught me that social change takes time and in order for cultural norms to shift, there needs to be a groundswell of support and shared experiences. I feel confident that with so many people speaking out, that this groundswell of support is growing every day and that gives me hope for the young girls in the Bohra community. 4) What pieces of wisdom would you share with new volunteers or community members who are interested in supporting Sahiyo? Listen to those who you may not agree with and try to find common ground. You will find that even if you disagree about something as important as khatna, you can find mutual understanding and come to a place where you are able to communicate at a deep level. That is the beginning of true social change.
Sahiyo U.S. Advisory Board Spotlight: Maryum Saifee
As Sahiyo’s U.S. operations and programs have grown, in 2018, we invited various individuals from a host of backgrounds and professions to join our inaugural U.S. Advisory Board. The advisory board provides strategic advice to the management of Sahiyo and ensures that we continue fulfilling our mission to empower communities to end Female Genital Cutting and create positive social change through dialogue, education, and collaboration based on community involvement. This month, we are pleased to highlight Maryum Saifee, who has graciously agreed to serve as the Chair for our inaugural U.S. Advisory Board. 1) Can you tell us a bit about your background? I was born and raised in Texas and the product of Indian immigrant parents. Like many South Asian-Americans, my parents were baffled when I strayed from the script (pursuing a medical degree to eventually take over my mom’s practice) and opted for an unpredictable career in public service. My first act of rebellion was joining the Peace Corps at nineteen. I worked in a small village just north of the Dead Sea in Jordan. In my two years there, I became interested in the impact of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. When I came home from Jordan, I served as an AmeriCorps volunteer working with South Asian survivors of domestic violence and educating school administrators in Seattle on the impact of post 9-11 anti-immigrant backlash. Just over ten years ago, I joined the U.S. foreign service where I spent more time in the Middle East serving in Cairo (during the 2011 Arab uprising), Baghdad, and most recently Lahore. I was also proud to serve as a policy advisor in the Secretary’s Office of Global Women’s Issues leading the U.S. government’s efforts to address and respond to gender-based violence (including bringing about an end to Female Genital Mutilation) globally. 2) When did you first get involved with Sahiyo and what opportunities have you been involved in? I first became involved with Sahiyo when I worked in the Secretary’s Office of Religion and Global Affairs in 2015. I organized panel discussions at the United Nations during key moments (the Commission on the Status of Women and International Day of Zero Tolerance) as well as at large-scale civil society convenings like the Islamic Society of North America’s annual convening. Sahiyo was (and continues to be) a powerful force for social change. Prior to Sahiyo’s existence, FGM was framed as a faraway problem restricted to sub-Saharan Africa. However, over the last few years there is a greater understanding that FGM is global in scope and not only occurring in South and Southeast Asia but communities all over the world. I have been honored to serve as Sahiyo’s first advisory board chair and hope to help the organization continue making a strong impact. 3) How has your involvement impacted your life? Sahiyo is a powerful platform pushing for long-term social change. Despite backlash and pushback, the organization continues its work and has given survivors like me the opportunity to forge bonds of solidarity with others fighting against FGM. 4) What pieces of wisdom would you share with new volunteers or community members who are interested in supporting Sahiyo? I would say to try and stay upbeat even when there are challenges. Changing mindsets won’t happen overnight, but it will happen in time. My advice is to be patient and stay focused on the end goal. And in the meantime, make sure to practice self-care to avoid burnout.
Introducing Sahiyo’s inaugural U.S. Advisory Board
Sahiyo is pleased to introduce our inaugural U.S. Advisory Board. As our U.S. operations and programs have grown, the advisory board will provide strategic advice to the management of our organization, and ensure that we continue fulfilling our mission to empower communities to end Female Genital Cutting and create positive social change through dialogue, education, and collaboration based on community involvement. Advisory board members will be supporting a human rights driven organization dedicated to creating a world without Female Genital Cutting through dialogue, education and direct community involvement. Join us in welcoming the team: Maria Akhter, Renee Bergstrom, Alisha Bhagat, Insia Dariwala, Dr. Melody Eckardt, Joanne Golden, Priya Goswami, Aarefa Johari, Zehra Patwa, Maryum Saifee, and Joanna Vergoth.
U.S. Advisory Board
Alisha Bhagat, Sahiyo U.S. Advisory Board Chair, is a futurist and senior strategist whose work focuses on the creative use of futures tools to impact long term positive change, particularly around social justice and equality. She currently works at the nonprofit, Forum for the Future, and her work utilizes foresight methods such as systems mapping, scenario planning, and speculative futures to engage with stakeholders on strategic visions and the concrete actions needed to achieve them. She has engaged in systems change projects in many sectors including the food system, the retail sector, and urban planning. She is currently working on a project that examines the rise of nationalist movements around the world. She holds an MS in Foreign Service from Georgetown University and a BS in Anthropology and History from Carnegie Mellon University. She was awarded a Fulbright scholarship in 2005. Alisha also serves on the Board of Bitch Media, a feminist media organization. She is an avid gamer and science fiction enthusiast who spends her weekends chasing her two daughters around Brooklyn. You can find her @alishabhagat. Zehra Patwa, Sahiyo U.S. Advisory Board Vice-Chair, is the Co-Founder of WeSpeakOut, an organization that strives to work for equal rights for Bohra women in all spheres of life, specifically, on Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C) or khafz. She grew up in London and was educated at the University of Bradford Management Centre in the UK and the Université de Montpellier in France. Zehra lives in the US and currently works in Technology Project Management. She serves on the Board of Hopkins School (New Haven, CT) and on the Board of Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services – IRIS (New Haven, CT) . After discovering well into adulthood, that Type 1 FGM/C was practiced in her community and that she, too, had been subjected to it, she decided she could no longer keep silent. Although she has no recollection of the practice being done to her, she is vehemently opposed to it and works with WeSpeakOut to expose the practice within, and outside, the community. WeSpeakOut’s focus is to ensure that FGM/C is declared illegal wherever the Bohra community resides and Khafz, as a practice, ends as a social norm in the Bohra community. Maryum Saifee is currently an international affairs fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Prior to CFR, she served as a U.S. diplomat in Lahore, Baghdad, Erbil, Cairo, and various postings in Washington. Saifee also worked at the Ford Foundation and spent two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Jordan. She also worked with South Asian survivors of domestic violence as an AmeriCorps volunteer in Seattle. She published her story as a female genital mutilation (FGM) survivor in the Guardian and has contributed to Al Jazeera, CBC, NPR and other media outlets. Saifee is a graduate of Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and is a CFR term member. Renee Bergstrom is honored to be included on the Sahiyo Advisory Board to help support the strong dedicated women of the organization. As a survivor, she’s prepared throughout her life for a leadership role in ending FGM/C. In 1981, she spent two weeks at the Women’s Desk of the Lutheran World Federation discussing FGM with international organizations in Geneva, Switzerland. Egypt’s gentle warrior Marie Assaad, then deputy secretary-general of the World Council of Churches, consulted with her. She returned home to further her education including an art degree, a master’s degree in adult education and a doctorate in education in leadership. She recently became faculty for the Academy of Communication in Healthcare. Her story became public while she was attending the End Violence Against Girls Summit on FGM/C December 2, 2016, in Washington, DC. She wishes to use her art, education and communication skills to help young women throughout the world stand up to the human right to an unaltered body. Being included in the Sahiyo StoryCenter video production in Berkeley was an amazing experience with powerful results. Arefa Cassoobhoy is a board certified internal medicine doctor who is passionate about health literacy and committed to raising awareness of health topics that are currently under the radar and affect vulnerable communities. Her projects focus on empowering individuals and communities to improve their health through collaborations including advocacy, research, and education. As Senior Medical Director at WebMD, Cassoobhoy and the medical team ensure all content acrossWebMD is not only correct and current, but also easy to understand and useful. She oversees a national network of doctors that reviews content across the site and works with editorial teams on strategy and content development covering articles, videos, mobile applications and tools. Cassoobhoy sees patients and serves on the Board of Directors at the Clarkston Community Health Center. This rapidly growing, non-profit clinic provides healthcare to underinsured and uninsured individuals many of whom are recent immigrants. Involved with medical education and alumni engagement, Cassoobhoy serves on the Emory School of Medicine Alumni Board and the Rollins School of Public Health Community Advisory Board. Always learning, Cassoobhoy is pursuing board certification in lifestyle medicine. This is an evidence-based approach to prevent and treat disease with changes in diet, exercise and other lifestyle modifications. As a spokesperson for WebMD and Medscape, she is active on social media platforms including Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit, as well as media interviews and speaking engagements. Insia Dariwala, is an award-winning international filmmaker, and a TEDX Speaker, who effectively uses her creativity to spotlight difficult topics of our society in her films, and other visual communications. Through her organisations Sahiyo, and The Hands of Hope Foundation, she has managed to creatively address issues like Female Genital Mutilation-FGM, and Child Sexual Abuse. She has also successfully executed several community projects engaging the medium of storytelling, and visual arts, in an attempt to mainstream such issues. But her most recent victory was getting the Union Cabinet Minister, Maneka Gandhi to sanction her first ever study on Male Child Sexual Abuse in India, and investigate co-relations between unresolved abuse in boys, and