Estimated read time: 7-8 minutes
SOUTH JORDAN — Damaris was 12 years old when she ran away from home in Kuria, Kenya.
She was also 12 when she became the victim of female genital mutilation and was taught how to perform the procedure on other girls.
To escape the prospect of hurting other women the way she had been harmed, Damaris ran away and found refuge in Goceso Rescue Center, a place where women and girls find safety from sexual abuse.
She is one out of the 84% of girls in Kuria, most between the ages of 9 and 15, who undergo the abusive procedure, according to the WHOlives charitable organization.
The administrators of WHOlives who told Demaris' story said they learned about the severity of the problem in another place of refuge — Kenya's Hope Rescue Center — while using one of its human-powered drills to create a water well, which will allow the girls residing there to avoid walking long distances for the basic necessity of clean water.
Clean water
John Renouard, the South Jordan native and founder of WHOlives, traveled to Kenya to set up the well. He created the nonprofit in 2010 when, after his son had served a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Tanzania and Kenya, he and his son visited the mission areas. There, he saw dozens of African women and girls walk all day to obtain water while boys got to go to school and work. That's when he knew he had to do something to help.
On the plane ride home, he came up with the name "WHOlives" for a nonprofit organization — the acronym standing for "Water, Health and Opportunity." After a few months of brainstorming ways to bring wells and water to rural African areas, the founder had a dream of what a human-powered drill would look like and, in the middle of the night, sketched the ideas on scratch paper.
He then worked with the BYU Capstone mechanical engineering program to make the human-powered drill, also called the Village Drill, a reality. Since the project's beginning, WHOlives has created over 12,500 wells in 37 countries, providing water to 12.5 million residents, according to Renouard.
Helping girls
But during his visit to the rescue center, Renouard saw that it wasn't just a lack of water that hurt these girls' opportunities, but it was the dangers to their sexual safety.
Some young girls, he saw, were living at the Hope Rescue Center after being forced into child marriages, like a 16-year-old who identified herself as Judy in a video interview with WHOlives. Judy was just 12 when she was forced to marry a 76-year-old man, she said.
Many of the girls were also taking refuge to avoid female genital mutilation, a procedure where family members or village elders would cut off parts of girls' genitals, often for little reason other than cultural tradition and money, the WHOlives founder said.
After the cutting, the girl would be sold or married off, Renouard said.
"A lady will go in there and cut her, and then they're going to parade her five or six miles down the road, demanding money from any passerby," he said. "And quite honestly, there are many girls who died just from the procedure, from the loss of blood, from infection."
Jimmy Mukundi, the WHOlives field manager in Kenya, said he remembered walking to the police station and seeing girls who were being paraded.
"They're 15 kilometers from where they're being cut to their home. You'll see women dancing and drinking alcohol and celebrating, and they'll have men with arrows and spears in case they have an encounter with the police," Mukundi said.
Nicci Renouard, the founder's wife and WHOlives' director of public relations, noted that the procedure can prevent women from giving birth or having sex — but that many village elders see women as "more valuable" after the cutting.
There's even a "cutting season," a time when the girls get back from boarding school in November until January; during these months, they are much more likely to have the procedure forced upon them, Mukundi said.
"The reason why the elders are cutting the girls is that it's a form of business that they have," Mukundi said, adding that every time a girl gets cut, the cutters get 1,000 shillings per girl — essentially, 10 U.S. dollars.
John Renouard knew WHOlives had to intervene to not just help provide the girls clean water, but also help to end the practice of female genital mutilation.
But when the founder came back to Kenya, he had a problem to solve: female genital mutilation was illegal in the country, and the police were struggling to arrest the criminals who were cutting the girls.
So he asked the police what was preventing them from enforcing the law. And the answer? Not having enough fuel for their cars.
"Each police station has about five cars, but the (fuel) allotment allows a car to go about 30 miles a day — so that means they can drive out 15 miles and drive back 15 miles, but if the crime occurred 40 miles away, that's 40 miles out, 40 miles back," John Renouard said.
Essentially, the police had to pick their battles when it came to catching criminals who lived farther away.
To solve this problem, WHOlives wired the Kenyan police monthly payments for the fuel they needed, allowing law enforcement to have enough gas to travel to the cutting locations and arrest those involved. The nonprofit also requires each station to have a logbook detailing the transactions, where child advocates and magistrates ensure accountability with the police's gas payments.
"Now, they would get wind of one of these procedures, and the cops show up and they would arrest the parents," he said.
'The Value of a Daughter'
Since the project's kickstart, Kenyan police have apprehended over 50 individuals who helped spearhead the cuts, local authorities say. More than 30 of those caught have been prosecuted and convicted, Kuria Deputy County Commissioner Joyfillah Wambua said, according to a statement from WHOlives.
Police have had success in apprehending parents but still struggle to catch the village elders or the cutters themselves, Mukundi said.
"The fact that the police had extra fuel for the response made the community fear committing the crime of cutting the girls and parading the bleeding girls in the streets," Wambua said in a WHOlives press release.
The nonprofit would also provide funds to safehouses across the country, giving food and beds to police stations — including all five police stations in Kuria.
This past cutting season, more than 1,700 girls sought refuge in the WHOlives-organized safe houses and stations, according to the organization.
To better educate families and girls on the harmfulness of the treatment, John Renouard also created a 16-page pamphlet titled, "The Value of a Daughter," detailing the benefits of caring for a child and avoiding the procedure, and condemning families that do subject their children to it.
Volunteers in the nonprofit teach young girls about their value through classroom visits and handing out the pamphlets, the WHOlives founder said.
After running away, some survivors eventually make it back to a safe home. In a carefully structured reunification process, Mukundi allows parents to take their daughters back only if they first speak with child welfare officials and police, signing an agreement to not harm their child. If they do cause harm, they would be arrested, Mukundi said.
Others aren't so lucky. "Some of the parents are very positive. Some of them are very negative; they disown their girls," Mukundi said. "So most of the girls that we have now — they're all the crucial cases — are the ones that took place in this country, so they can't go back to their home because their home is still hostile for them."
Currently, Damaris stays at her boarding school throughout the year, and she stays at the Goceso Rescue Center during the holiday. She receives funds from WHOlives to have enough meals and continue her education. Many girls like her receive the help they need from generous donors, John Renouard said.
He noted that anyone who wants to help his organization can make a difference by donating via the WHOlives website.*
"WHOlives is truly inspired," Nicci Renouard said. "We know our plan; it's all about self-reliance. You know, it's not a handout. It's about, 'We love you, and we're going to show you what you need to do.'"
*KSL.com does not assure that the money deposited to the account will be applied for the benefit of the persons named as beneficiaries. If you are considering a deposit to the account, you should consult your own advisors and otherwise proceed at your own risk.
