Fahma Mohammed, the schoolgirl who challenged a shocking community tradition

Fahma is one of our youngest-ever award winners. She was just 17 when she was given the Young Campaigner of the Year Award in 2014 in recognition of her remarkable efforts to highlight and ban the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM). A petition she started as a schoolgirl collected over 240,000 signatures and was supported by Nobel prize winner Malala Yousefzai and then UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon. Her campaign resulted in compulsory training for public sector works so they could identify and help girls at risk. 

Ten years on, Fahma, who remains as dedicated to tackling gender and racial inequality reflects on the roots of her activism - which started when she was only 13 - and how it was nurtured by a very special teacher and talks about the reactions of her Somali community to her efforts, what she wished she had realised about the career opportunities that were open to her and why being the eldest of 10 children is so important to her.