Founders

Sahiyo

Sahiyo began in 2015 as a conversation between five women who felt strongly about the ritual of female genital cutting (khatna) in the Bohra community. Our group included a social worker, a researcher, two filmmakers, and a journalist, and all of us had already been speaking out, in our own ways, against the practice of FGC. As our collaboration grew, we realized the need for an organized, informed forum within the community that could help drive a movement to bring an end to FGC. That is how Sahiyo, the organization, was born.

Sahiyo is dedicated to empowering Asian and other communities to end female genital cutting (FGC) and create positive social change. By working towards an FGC-free world, we aim to recognize and emphasize the values of consent and a child’s/woman’s right over her own body. We aim to enable a culture in which female sexuality is not feared or suppressed but embraced as normal.

Sahiyo is the Bohra Gujarati word for ‘saheliyo’, or friends, and reflects our organization’s mission to engage in dialogue with the community to find a collective solution towards ending the practice of FGC.

Silence Speaks

Silence Speaks uses storytelling, creative arts, and participatory media methods to support the telling and witnessing of stories that all too often remain unspoken and unheard. By enhancing individual wellbeing and leadership, building community, educating audiences, and spurring policy change, our work leads to change at multiple levels and creates a lasting record of courageously outspoken voices.

Mariya Taher

Mariya Taher started her career advocating against female genital cutting (FGC) while at San Francisco State University for Master of Social Work, pursuing a thesis study, “Understanding Female Genital Cutting in the United States.”

Today, she has been named one of six experts to watch on the issue of FGC by NewsDeeply. For over a decade, she has worked in gender-based violence in the areas of teaching, research, policy, program development, and direct service. The Manhattan Young Democrats honored her as a 2017 Engendering Progress honoree and ABC news did a special feature on her, entitled: Underground: American Woman Underwent Female Genital Mutilation Comes Forward. In 2018, Mariya received the Human Rights Storytellers Award from the Muslim American Leadership Alliance. In 2020, she was recognized as one of the six inaugural grant recipients for the Crave Foundation for Women. 

Since 2015, she has collaborated with the Massachusetts Women’s Bar Association to pass legislation to protect girls from FGC. After starting a Change.org petition and gathering over 400,000 signatures, Massachusetts became the 39th state in the U.S. to do so. She also serves on the steering committee for the U.S. Network to End FGM/C. Prior to cofounding Sahiyo, Mariya held positions at Saheli, Support and Friendship for South Asian Women & Families, W.O.M.A.N., Inc., Asian Women’s Shelter, San Francisco Dept on the Status of Women, San Francisco State University, and was a 2014 Women’s Policy Institute Fellow through the Women’s Foundation of California.

Amy Hill

Amy is a fourth generation Californian, with deep roots in Sonoma County. After spending 12 years coordinating women’s health and violence prevention projects for the California Department of Health Services, Amy discovered digital storytelling and launched StoryCenter’s Silence Speaks initiative, which since 2000 has used oral history, participatory media, and popular education strategies to support people in countries around the world in sharing personal stories of gender, health, and human rights. She has authored several journal articles and book chapters about this work. Amy lives in Berkeley, where she continues to lead Silence Speaks and oversees much of StoryCenter’s communication work. She holds a BA in British and American Literature from Scripps College and a MA in Gender Studies from Stanford University.