Tuesday, 1 August 2017
Five school girls from Kenya: Stacy Owino, Cynthia Otieno, Purity Achieng, Mascrine Atieno and Ivy Akinyi, will be Africa's only representatives at Technovation in California next month.
A competition where girls aged 10 to 18 develop mobile phone apps to end problems in their communities for a chance to win $15,000. The Kenyan team have designed an app for young women at risk of Female Genital Mutilation.
Their app is known as the I-cut, its main aim is to put an end to FGM. I-cut presents a total assistance mechanism to girls at risk of FGM. It also connects victims with rescue centres and gives legal and medical help to those who have been cut.
According to research, One in four Kenyan women and girls have undergone FGM, which involves the partial or total removal of the external genitalia, even though it is illegal in the East African nation.
