MORE than £600 raised from a Great Sutton church will go towards funding an African women’s rescue centre.
Fr David Fisher from St John the Evangelist Church presented a cheque for £640 to one of the church’s honorary assistant priests, the Rev Sheila Hughes, a steadfast fundraiser for the Maasai Rescue Centre, in Narok, Kenya.
The centre aims to be a safe haven for girls who do not want to be circumcised and married off at a young age, enabling them to continue their education.
FGM (Female Genital Mutilation) was outlawed for under 18-year-olds in 2001, but the Maasai continue to widely practice it as an important rite to womanhood, with some Maasai men insisting on only marrying women who have undergone the rite.
Girls are usually circumcised between the ages of 9 and 13 years and married off soon afterwards, and children, sometimes as young as eight, are forced to marry mature men, putting an end to their education.
Sheila Hughes visited Kenya and is one of the main fundraisers for the long-term Rescue Centre project.
It is hoped the first eight girls will move into the centre in October this year, eventually being able to house 144 girls.
