Orchid Project is a UK Charity and a Danish association “Foreningen Orchid Project Danmark”.
Our vision is a world free from female genital cutting (FGC).
We partner with organisations that deliver a sustainable, proven end to female genital cutting
We communicate the potential for an end to FGC, raising awareness about how, why and where female genital cutting happens
We advocate to ensure stakeholders resource and prioritise an end to FGC
Julia Lalla-Maharajh, Orchid Project’s founder, was volunteering in Ethiopia when she came across the scale and extent of female genital cutting there. She returned to the UK determined to do something about this. When speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2010 she met with leaders from all over the world including One Life Foundation founder Michael Halbye. Far from being disinterested, everyone urged her on and the question asked over and again was: “What works in ending FGC? How can we work together to end it?”
With the support from One Life Foundation Julia was able to go to Senegal to find some of the answers to these questions. In early 2011 she visited Tostan, a Senegal-based NGO whose community empowerment program is leading to widespread abandonment across Western Africa. For the first time, instead of finding people being silenced, talking furtively about a taboo, working on the margins, Julia found entire communities celebrating their ability to choose a life without cutting.
Returning from Senegal, she began to realise that an organisation focusing solely on ending female genital cutting was necessary to give the issue the requisite attention it deserves. In 2011, Orchid Project was founded to fulfil this role.
The founder of Orchid Project Julia Lalla-Maharajh
One Life Foundation believed in and supported Julia and Orchid Project in the first strategy- and research phase, when support is hard to get but crucial for further existence. Since then One Life Foundation and Orchid Project have worked closely together by co-hosting 2 events in Denmark: First when celebrating the foundation of and fundraising for the Danish association “Foreningen Orchid Project Danmark” in Filmhuset in June 2011, and latest when celebrating “UN International Day Against FGC” on February 6, 2014. The Chairman of One Life Foundation, Michael Ritto, is a board member of Orchid Project UK and Chairman of Foreningen Orchid Project Danmark.
Without the support from One Life Foundation, Orchid Project may not have existed today, and the impact that Orchid Project have already had would not have happened.