By The Intact Kenya Team
Job and I arrived in Bondo town in the evening of Friday 24th June, 2022 in readiness for our planned live-on-air radio talk show which was scheduled to kick-start at 9:30pm on the same day.
At exactly 9:35pm, our host Steve Jakonyango began the show on air by greeting and welcoming listeners that evening after spending five minutes on entertaining listeners with a popular Luo ohangla song of Chuade gi Nyundo by Odongo Swagg. Steve went ahead to prepare them psychologically for the show that was coming up would be about the negative impacts of Male Circumcision since its inception in the last decade.
We spent a few minutes in the initial hour to give a brief introduction of ourselves as the Intact Kenya Team, what we do and for how long we’ve been doing it. In the same hour, we talked about the impact of Male Circumcision on sexuality, HIV/AIDS, cervical cancer and why we are advocating for its immediate stop.
Top on our discussion that night were:
1. Functions of the foreskin
2. Biblical approach to circumcision
3. Human rights violations of circumcision of babies
4. Circumcision and culture
5. Financial gains of circumcision by the medical community
We wound up the show by allowing listeners to give their input, ask questions, give suggestions, appreciations, views, ideas or any other comment they had about they learnt that night. There were listeners who agreed with us that there has been a sharp rise in sexually transmitted infections (STIs) since circumcision was rolled out with a view to curb the spread of HIV/AIDS. Another listener called to appreciate the good teachings we are spreading across the nation as he put emphasis on circumcision of the soul that binds the creator and his creatures in a covenant. He summarized by reading a biblical verse from the book of Philippians 3:1-8. Another caller briefly explained his regrets and how the government lied to the people.
These and many others who sent text messages were among the people who congratulated us for the good work we do, appreciated and encouraged us to keep up the good work of educating the masses on why circumcision should be stopped immediately.
Intact Kenya