GAMCOTRAP hosts board meeting on harmful practices

FGM

The Gambia Committee on Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children (GAMCOTRAP) is hosting a three-day Annual Board Meeting of the Inter Africa Committee (IAC) to discuss harmful traditional practices.

The meeting, held from March 29-31, 2011 at Kairaba Beach Hotel, The Gambia is aimed at familiarizing attendees with the work being done in the fight against harmful traditional practices in The Gambia, which is geared towards promoting the health of children and women.

The meeting of Board of Directors of IAC is derived from ten member countries in Africa. And the President of Inter Africa Committee (IAC) Mrs. Mariam Lamizana Traoret said they will be discussing on an audit report on Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and other harmful traditional practice in the world.

The fight against the challenges faced on FGM and other issues affecting women and children in Africa has been on for 28 years, she said. Some progress had been made; however, she said there is still a long way to go as the practice is still continuing.

She hailed GAMCOTRAP for what she described as a “great job” in the fight against FGM and related issues affecting women and children in The Gambia. 

“If recent experiences of GAMCOTRAP and others I am privy to are anything to go by, I would like to urge the IAC Board and the entire NGO community to start thinking of a new paradigm to their governance responsibilities,” the Chairperson of the Association of Non-Governmental Organisations in The Gambia (TANGO) Yankuba Dibba said.

The Chairperson of the Consortium of NGOs in The Gambia said instead of consolidating existing so-called donors and recipients’ relationships, going forward, they must begin to explore strategies that facilitate a move from donorship to ownership.

“We must urgently take responsibility and leadership in developing the necessary resources, and formulating appropriate strategies that empower southern NGOs to forge mutually beneficial partnership with their northern colleagues,” he charged. Source - The Voice