Public Health · GIZ Ethiopia · 2025

The Dialogues That Change What a Community Decides

Ending a practice this old does not happen in a campaign. It happens in a circle, under a tree, over hours.

Communities documented

2 months

Field duration across Somali and Afar regions

GIZ

Contracting client: GIZ Ethiopia

The challenge

GIZ Ethiopia needed a credible record of the generation dialogues used to prevent and end female genital mutilation in the Somali and Afar regions — work that is slow, sensitive and conducted in private community settings. The task was to document it honestly, without turning participants into subjects or the process into a promotional set piece.

The approach

01
Worked across eight communities in the Somali and Afar regions over two months, moving with the dialogue facilitators rather than scheduling around a shoot.
02
Filmed the dialogues themselves — elders, men's and women's circles, and younger participants — with consent protocols agreed with GIZ and community leaders before any camera came out.
03
Used local crew and local languages throughout, so conversations were understood in the room and not reconstructed in the edit.

What we produced

Video documentation of generation dialogues across eight communities
Interviews with facilitators, elders and community participants
Photographic coverage of the dialogue process for institutional and reporting use

The result

The record shows the decision being made by the people making it. That is what makes it usable, and what makes it true.

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