It's with great pleasure we announce that our Chair Mama Sylla has won The IKWRO True Honour Award 2023.
Each year, IKWRO – Women’s Rights Organisation, holds the True Honour Awards to celebrate individuals and organisations that take a stand against “honour” based abuse, whether in their personal lives or in their work.
By recognising and publicising outstanding courage and commitment, we hope that we can inspire others to act. The True Honour Awards also commemorate all those whose lives have been stolen by “honour” based abuse.
Every nominee will be celebrated at the ceremony and receive a certificate. The overall winner and winners of special recognition will be announced on the night and will have the opportunity to say a few short words.
Mama Sylla – Winner of the True Honour Awards 2023
Mama Sylla is a community support worker, a mother of 3, including twin girls, and a survivor of FGM.
Mama Sylla was born and raised in Guinea. a country with the highest FGM prevalence (94.5%). She went through FGM when she was 9 years old. Looking back she says “it was extremely painful. I bled for three days. I was lucky to survive. They said a witch had put a curse on me”.
FGM is so common in Guinea that Mama Sylla says she grew up not questioning it, until much later as an adult, when she was pregnant. Mama Sylla faced serious health complications as a result of the FGM and she was referred to a specialist FGM antenatal team.
On learning about the different types of FGM and its long-term complications, especially during childbirth, Mama Sylla spoke to women from her community. It was then that she realised that women in her community had access to very little information on FGM and its detrimental implications. She says “many women die giving birth. People will say it’s because the baby was too big, but it’s because the mother cannot push because she’s been cut.”
From then, Mama Sylla made it her primary mission to protect her children and any other woman or girl from being cut.
Mama Sylla established La Fraternite Guineenne in 2016, a grassroots charity working to end FGM in the UK and in Guinea. She runs safeguarding workshops and events within the Guinean and West African communities across the UK and campaigns for the promotion of health care and education, especially for young, deprived girls in the Republic of Guinea.
Mama Sylla has worked extensively over the past 15 years in a volunteer capacity doing community outreach support alongside a number of charitable organisations including FORWARD UK, Family Action, the British Red Cross and 28 TOO MANY as well as with the NHS. She participated in IKWRO’s CHAT project funded by the European Union and has referred several women to IKWRO for specialist FGM support. She is a member of 28 to Many’s Board of Trustees.
In 2015, her community work was celebrated with an award from the British Red Cross. In 2018 she was part of the Home Office’s end FGM campaign “Let’s Protect Our Girls”. In 2019 she participated in Operation Limelight at Heathrow Airport to tackle FGM and “honour” based abuse. In 2020, La Fraternite Guineenne received the “Point of Light Award from the then British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson.
Mama Sylla is inspirational. She is a great example of an empowered woman that empowers women and girls, first as a role model and secondly as a persuasive campaigner. She reminds us that specialist services are essential to reducing “honour” based abuse. She works within the community to educate and successfully shift attitudes on FGM.
Mama Sylla says “my dream is to see a world free of FGM and any harmful practices . I have two daughters and they mean the world to me. They are the first generation from my family that will never undergo FGM.”