In Her Own Words
The story of Healthy Tomorrow director Susan McLucas' early years working to help organize and mobilize the movement in Mali

I began working in Mali in 1997, when the Centre Djoliba invited me to volunteer with them. One of the first things I did was to make a poster about excision for public display, which they approved. I found a local artist and thought up some words. We ran it all by many groups and got the groups to put their names on the poster too. I got quotes from religious and other leaders for the poster. Just after I left town, UNICEF took over the poster and modified it, removing most of the words and toning down the picture: 8,000 posters have now been distributed in four languages (French and three local languages) and these can still be seen in public places.

During my second trip I mainly helped to distribute the posters and get them seen. I also helped organize conferences for the Centre Djoliba.

During my third stay, I began working with music against excision. I talked to some artists who were willing to sing and we began work on what eventually became the Stop Excision music album (tape and CD versions available).

During my fourth stay, in 2000, I worked with a little non-profit, SI3, and put out the album Stop Excision. After the album was basically done, with a personal loan from my father (John McLucas), we were able to get funding from the Canadian Center for International Study and Cooperation, to make the album and videos to eight of the songs. My partners worked on the videos after I left.

During my fifth stay I produced the video to the song "We Can Say 'No!'" and helped found the Pledge Against Excision. The Pledge came about because we needed a way to use volunteers that Sadio Sylla had found that said they wanted to do something. We found 30 groups that wanted to participate in it and began collecting signatures of people who were willing to publicly declare their opposition to the practice. One of the big questions during that stay was where to have the Pledge Against Excision housed, or based out of, and what organization to use to do it.

During my year and a half absence, my partners in Mali, notably Siaka Traoré and Amadou Togo, founded Sini Sanuman and registered it with the government of Mali.

During my sixth stay (2003), I spent eight months participating in the effort to get signatures on the Pledge Against Excision and getting others inspired to work on it. We collected quotes from religious leaders and put them on the back of our main handout. We also kept a list of the excisers that we had convinced to stop, which we found very useful, giving the impression that everyone was doing it. (Often excisers would recognize their fellow-excisers and be surprised that they had stopped.) We made the Certificate of Honor, that we started giving to excisers that had stopped. We renewed contracts with radio stations to play the album Stop Excision and worked on getting the video on TV. Along with Siaka Traoré, president of Sini Sanuman and co-director of the project, I coordinated and recognized the efforts of our various people, and we tried to recognize the work people were doing. I also worked on fund-raising.

Without the team of dedicated activists in Mali, this work would not have succeeded.