ABOUT ORCHID PROJECT
The Orchid Project is a charity registered in the UK as Project Orchid, number 1141057. Project Orchid Ltd is a Company Limited by Guarantee number 7467568. Our registered address is 17-18 Aylesbury Street, London EC1R 0DB.
Why set up the Orchid Project?
The Orchid Project was founded in June 2010. Julia Lalla-Maharajh, its founder, was volunteering in Ethiopia when she came across the scale and extent of female genital cutting there. She was determined to do something about this.
The Plinth, Trafalgar Square
When she returned to London she volunteered with FORWARD to discover more about organisations working in this field. She was able to appear on the Plinth in Trafalgar Square spending her hour raising awareness about FGC.
Supporters underneath the plinth, wearing t-shirts
Following this, she entered the YouTube/World Economic Forum competition, the Davos Debates. This called for one human rights activist to film a 3 minute video to highlight their urgent cause. The competition was judged by Ariana Huffington, Paulo Coelho and Muhammad Yunus and she was shortlisted. In a global vote, she won and went to Davos, to hold a debate with the head of UNICEF, Amnesty International and the UN Foundation. This was facilitated by Nick Kristof, award winning Pulitzer Prize winner and co-author of Half the Sky.
She set up the Orchid Project to address the need for dedicated advocacy to address FGC. She works on the Orchid Project with a number of others. What unites them is their passionate belief in empowering communities to work to change this practice and seeing this happen within the next generation.
In 2011 the Orchid Project has gratefully received funding from: Wallace Global Fund (USA), Maryfonden (Denmark), 5 For Fairness, The Joffe Charitable Trust, the Clemens Foundation, One Life Foundation (Denmark), The Funding Network, The Obel Family Foundation (Denmark). Orchid is also receives support from funds raised by Foreningen Orchid Project Danmark, as well as from many individuals who make donations of varying sizes and undertake fundraising for Orchid Project.
The Orchid Project is governed by a Board of Trustees, who are also Directors of Project Orchid Ltd:
Angela Jameson Michael Ritto Steen Rosenfalck (Chair) Helen Stokes Jeremy White
LIBRARY
The following are all documents that may be of interest if you are researching FGC. Please follow links to download documents.
The Unicef and UNFPA Joint Programme for the Accelerated Abandonment of FGM/C: Annual Report 2010
Report on the girl child, UN General Assembly, 2009
Eliminating female genital mutilation: UN Interagency statement, 2008 (signed up to by OHCHR, UNAIDS, UNDP, UNECA, UNESCO, UNFPA, UNHCR, UNICEF, UNIFEM, WHO)
Unicef, Changing a harmful social convention – FGM, 2005
Unicef, coordinated strategy to abandon FGC in one generation, 2007
UNICEF, Statistics on female genital mutilation, 2005
UNICEF/UNFPA joint strategy, 2009
UNFPA Global Consultation on FGM, 2008
WHO, A systematic review of health complications of FGM, 2000
WHO, Obstetric outcome in six countries, 2006
Donors Working Group Statement on FGM/C, 2008
USAID, Production of a Total, 2008
Population Reference Bureau, Data and trends on FGM, 2008
WHO, Global strategy to stop healthcare providers performing FGM, 2010
Center for Reproductive Rights, Advocates guide to action against FGM, 2000
Presentations:
Population Reference Bureau: FGM/C Telling a Story with Data and Trends, 2009
Photographs on this site reproduced with kind permission of N Cornwall and J Belle
