For Nice Nailantei Lengete, dismantling a deeply entrenched cultural practice such as female genital mutilation (FGM) among the Maasai, her own community, could never be achieved through confrontation and litigation. It required replacing the high walls of silence with the bridges of conversation.
After escaping the cut when she was just eight years old and becoming one of the few girls in her community to progress to high school instead of being married off in her teens, Nice returned home not to wage war against the elders who had upheld the practice for generations, but to persuade them that there was a better way to mark a girl’s transition into womanhood.
The result was an Alternative Rite of Passage—a three-day ceremony that preserves Maasai songs, blessings, teachings and celebrations while eliminating the ritual cutting.
“What drives me every day is the conviction that no girl should ever have to choose between her culture and her future,” says Lengete.
"Every girl deserves the chance to grow up safe, stay in school, dream without fear, and realize her full potential."
“Every girl deserves the chance to grow up safe, stay in school, dream without fear, and realize her full potential.”
In the process, Nice, now 35, has helped at least 20,000 girls not only from FGM but also from child marriage, giving them the chance to remain in school and pursue opportunities that had long been denied to generations before them.
“My ultimate goal is to create a world that is a truly “Nice” place for every child a world where every girl is protected, educated, empowered, and free to make informed decisions about her body and her future,” she explains, noting that her approach can be replicated to other communities that still perform the cut.
Her work earned her global recognition, including a place on Time magazine’s 2018 list of the World’s 100 Most Influential People.
Among the Maasai, the cutting ceremony traditionally marks the passage from girlhood to womanhood and signals that a girl is ready for marriage.
Yet the practice carries devastating consequences, including cysts, chronic infections, urinary incontinence, complications during childbirth, infertility and lifelong pain.
Nice knows those dangers intimately. As a child, she watched a 14-year-old girl die days after undergoing the procedure, an experience that shaped the course of her life.
After repeatedly fleeing relatives determined to have her circumcised, she completed her education and returned to her community with an unlikely strategy: dialogue instead of defiance.
Today, through Nice Place Foundation, she combines advocacy, rescue centres and leadership programmes to prove that culture can be preserved without sacrificing the rights, health and future of girls.
–Dominic Omondi