The Saleema initiative, launched in 2008 by the National Council of Child Welfare (NCCW) and UNICEF Sudan, supports the protection of girls from genital cutting, particularly in the context of efforts to promote collective abandonment of the practice at community level. Saleema is a word that means whole, healthy in body and mind, unharmed, intact, pristine, and untouched, in a God-given condition.The broad objective of Saleema is to change the way that people talk about female genital cutting by promoting, at the community level, wide usage of new positive terminology to describe the natural bodies of girls and women.
Since the Saleema Initiative began in 2009, the ideal of keeping girls saleema has spread throughout Sudan, and also created interest in neighbouring countries such as Somalia and Egypt.
The Saleema model of positive communication is Sudan’s gift to building the best future for girls and women everywhere.
