"If you look at your table's you'll see some play dough, we want you to model a vulva in groups, there'll be a prize for the best." What an icebreaker. I must admit modelling a vagina in a room full of doctors, nurses and gynaecologists is rather intimidating.
Last Saturday I attended the National FGM Conference held at the University of Bristol, the day was packed full of empowering guest speakers. The conference was aimed at nurses, medical students and caregivers.
Gaining knowledge on what social and medical professionals should be doing such as mandatory reporting, safeguarding pathways and how to act with survivors of FGM, has improved my understanding significantly.
Instead of writing a script full of phrases that I have a vague grasp of, thanks to attending the event I can confidently discuss the issues and terminology in my piece with full understanding and clarity which I (hope) will improve the documentary overall.
My aim was to record voxpops with those attending to ask them why they're attending and what they've learnt so far. I expected the guests to mainly be health professionals, but I was surprised when people I approached were social workers looking to better their understanding or teachers who have introduced FGM into their curriculum and wanted to spread the word.
Before going to the conference I was unsure if my documentary could go down the route of education, particularly schools and their role in FGM prevention because I didn't know if this was an issue being discussed by many. However during the event many comments were made about FGM awareness in the education system.
This has confirmed what angle my documentary will be taking