Marsabit woman on mission to save Rendille girls from FGM, early marriages

Fatuma Nabosu was only six years old when, one evening, her stepmother sent her to buy three razor blades at a village shop in Loyangalani, a small arid town on the shores of Lake Turkana in northern Kenya’s Marsabit County. She had no idea what the razors were for.

The next morning, she and her two sisters were ordered to wear t-shirts. Milk was poured on their heads following Rendille traditions as they sat at the entrance of a hut with women from the village present.

The girls were to undergo circumcision. The pain Fatuma experienced was excruciating, and it remains permanently in her memory. She still remembers how she bled as the circumciser repeated the procedure after one woman alerted her the cut “had not been done well”.

Fatuma narrated her painful experience during an interview in Nairobi on her recent tour of Kenya to assess her dream project, the Dakhane Primary School and rescue centre for Rendille girls in Kargi, Marsabit.

The Germany-based anti-FGM crusader has transformed her traumatic experience into a beacon of hope for her community. Her mission is to educate and rescue Rendille girls from the cut and early marriages.

Together with her husband Dieter Hanke, Fatuma founded the Gargar Charity Organisation as her testament to her unwavering commitment to eradicating FGM, breaking the cycle of poverty, and empowering young girls in Marsabit County to be leaders in their own right.

The Eastleigh Voice met Fatuma at the Bomas of Kenya where she held a charity night to raise funds for her school in Dakhane.

The Rendille people, also referred to as “the holders of the stick of God”, are ethnically related to the Somali, and culturally similar to their Maa-speaking neighbours, the Samburu.

Fatuma Nabosu during a past fundraiser held at the Bomas of Kenya in Nairobi. (Photo: Yassin Juma)

“I am not a rich person. I am just an ordinary middle-class mother of two living in Hamburg going through my daily struggles. I felt the vacuum faced by the children of Dakhane village due to the lack of an elementary school and decided to fundraise through friends and well-wishers in Germany and Kenya,” said Fatuma.

Support system

Dakhane Primary School acts as a support system for FGM survivors, offering counselling, medical assistance, vocational training, and a safe shelter. Due to the demand for an elementary-level school, Fatuma opted to allow boys to join the only school in Dakhane as day scholars, while the 100-bed capacity dormitory will be used as a rescue centre for girls running away from FGM, early marriages, and child labour. It is also home to orphaned girls.

“Before I built the school, the children in Dakhane would walk more than 10 kilometres to Kargi town to attend school. There was also the danger of hyenas, with reported cases of deaths from hyena attacks,” Fatuma said.

She also said that there had been cases of some girls being raped by morans while on their way to school, while others risked drowning in flash floods during heavy rains.

The journey was easy for 40-year-old Fatuma since she started building the school in 2021. But she managed to finish classrooms, kitchen, and dormitory in 2022, and in January 2023, Dakhane Primary School officially admitted its first pupil.

With a tight budget and a deadline, Fatuma would practically join in building the classrooms and toilets.

Fatuma Nabosu during a past fundraiser held at the Bomas of Kenya in Nairobi. (Photo: Yassin Juma)

“She would tie her baby on her back and join the masons in building the classroom whenever she was in the country. I have seen the fruits of her work. She loves her Rendille people despite living in Europe. We are happy to have a school next to our manyatta,” Hassan, a resident of Dakhane, told The Eastleigh Voice.

Fatuma said with the change that her school has brought in Dakhane, parents are now appreciating the importance of education.

I tell them that instead of marrying off their girls, they should educate them. I was amazed to find children in Dakhane speaking Kiswahili and English. For me, that is a very big achievement since these children are the leaders of tomorrow,” said Fatuma.

The school has 108 pupils, including former livestock herders and girls rescued from early marriages. There are currently eight teachers in the school, with Fatuma now in the process of building houses for them, despite facing financial challenges.

“It is sad that our Rendille leaders failed to show up tonight to assist our children and empower our community by educating them. You can see the turnout. But I remain optimistic. The younger people turned out in good numbers. I want them to take the mantle from me. I have to make sure all Rendille children get an education, one child at a time,” she said during the event at Bomas.

With the establishment of the school came the slow but steady growth of the remote village of Dakhane.

Fatuma, who has started a tree-growing project in the once-desert village, said other organisations have started showing interest in the village.

“A lot is changing in the village and our project has grown very fast too. In the next year, Dakhane will be a big centre, rivalling Kargi,” she said.

Fatuma hopes to build a bigger shelter for girls that will serve the whole of northern Kenya when she gets adequate funding.

An alumnus of Moi Girls Maralal in Samburu, Fatuma dropped out of school due to lack of fees. She later joined St Theresa’s Rije in Meru and dropped out again for lack of fees.

As luck would have it, she acted in the 2004 Hollywood movie, The Constant Gardener, as a refugee, and managed to raise money to clear high school.

Her life journey serves as a powerful tool of inspiration for others to pursue education despite the challenges faced by pastoralist children.