Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is still a nightmare in most parts of the world, What started as a desire to help fellow girls who are targets of female circumcision has earned five young Kenyan girls recognition in not only Africa, but also globally.
The students from Kisumu Girls high school who developed a mobile application aimed at ending FGM dubbed, ‘I-Cut’ are the new winners of the prestigious African of the Year Award 2018.
This was after a selection committee of the Daily Trust’s African of the Year Award, headed by former President of Botswana Festus Mogae settled on the five as the award winners.
They will bag $25,000 (about Sh2.5 million) prize money in addition to a specially-made plaque, and will be awarded and honoured at a ceremony in Abuja, Nigeria, next Wednesday.
The programme was started by Daily Trust Newspaper 11 years ago with the first winner being Congolese surgeon Dennis Mukwege, who recently won the Nobel Peace Prize.
In a press statement by Gift Ilesanmi, head of brand marketing at Media Trust Limited, Stacy Owino, Purity Achieng’, Ivy Akinyi, Synthia Otieno and Macrine Atieno, former and current students of Kisumu Girls High School, were selected out of several dozen nominees, for innovation of a mobile application called I-cut.
Although FGM is illegal, it is still widely practised in the country and many other countries in Africa and around the world.
The innovation has become a useful tool in the war against the vice, which is viewed as a rite of passage and has thrived for ages despite the risk it poses for the victims.
The teens, aged 17 to 18, call themselves “the Restorers”. As one of them, Synthia Otieno said, they adopted the name because they want to “restore hope to hopeless girls”.
I-cut is a mobile application that connects girls at risk of circumcision with rescue centres. It also gives legal and medical help to those who have been subjected to FGM. “The Restorers” are partnering with several non-governmental organisations in their mission to eradicate FGM.
They were Africa’s only representatives at Google’s 2017 Technovation challenge, which took place in Silicon Valley, California, USA.