Traveling for a cause

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About 12 years ago, Susan McLucas read a news story about a woman who escaped from the northwest African country of Mali just as she was to undergo the cultural ritual of female circumcision, or genital mutilation as it is called by the many people worldwide hoping to end the practice.

"I had no idea that anything like this existed," recalls McLucas, who then stumbled onto the Women's International Network, a newsletter published by Fran Hosken of Lexington that frequently spoke out against FGM. According to Amnesty International, FGM is practiced in more than 28 African countries, mostly involving clitoridectomy or excision of the clitoris; the least radical procedure consists of the removal of the clitoral hood. There and elsewhere in the world, the practice is justified for reasons including religion, gender inequality, and hygiene.

Five years ago McLucas, 53, of Somerville, who operates the Bicycle Barn and Riding School, teaching mostly adults to ride bikes, inherited a small sum. "I thought, why don't I just see what I can do" in Mali, she said, and she arranged to volunteer with an anti-FGM group in Bamako, the capital.

McLucas has now visited Bamako five times, most recently from January to June last year, and she hopes to go again this year. She communicates mostly in French, but is learning Bambara, a regional dialect. She gets around by bicycle, uncommon for a woman. "A lot of people seeing me bicycling along the street would break out laughing. They'd say what means, `Cute little white lady that we like on a bike.' "

Her first year in Bamako was spent arranging the design of an anti-female circumcision poster. "Twelve groups signed it, we got help from UNICEF, and it's been distributed all over the country.

"But most people don't know how to read, so posters were only so effective. I started thinking about mass communication. Mali is a very big place for music. I started asking around for who people thought would be good, and it was amazingly easy to get in touch with the big singers," she said.

Two years ago, with help from the Canadian Center for International Studies, she produced "Stop Excision/Stop Musomani Ka Neguekoro Sigi," a compilation CD (available on her Web site, www.stopexcision.net) featuring top Malian artists, such as Amy Koita and Kandia Kouyate, singing out against genital mutilation and for women's rights. Last year she worked on distributing the CD and also making videos out of eight of the songs.

"Then, I didn't really start out to start a new project, but I got a new idea," McLucas said. Several women at a health center had volunteered to help, and together they brainstormed on "something that had a way to show progress." They came up with the Pledge Against Excision, a signature campaign where families pledge they won't have their daughters circumcised and that they will speak out against the practice. "We've had about 30 organizations sign on," she said, and the national drive is building momentum.

McLucas has done some sightseeing, mostly to the land of the Dogon, an ethnic group living along the Niger River in the southeast, in steep cliff dwellings.

There she was struck by "these little structures that are open-air, with thick thatched roofs on posts, but not tall enough for anyone to stand up, called togoma. The idea is it's a place to go and resolve disputes, and nobody can get too full of themselves."

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