In our newest #WeArePlay movie, which celebrates the folks behind apps and video games on Google Play, we meet Corrine, the founding father of Know Your Lemons. After dropping household and associates to breast most cancers, she used her abilities as a designer to create a easy, visible, and accessible technique to educate folks about breast most cancers. Uncover how her award-winning app is altering the dialog round breast most cancers and saving lives worldwide.
Your mission is deeply private. What impressed you to create the app and use lemons?
In my early 20s, I misplaced each my grandmothers and a detailed good friend to breast most cancers, which made me search for details about the illness. As a graphic designer, I knew I might enhance the academic supplies accessible by creating one thing more practical.
That’s the place the lemons are available in. I used to be trying to find a common image and found that lemons have options like nipples and pores, like a breast. The thought was perfected when a radiologist defined {that a} cancerous lump is normally onerous, like a lemon seed. It gave us a easy, pleasant, and visually clear technique to speak about a scary matter and clarify the 12 indicators of breast most cancers so that everybody can perceive.
How has Know Your Lemons helped cultural conversations round breast most cancers?
Our mission is to start out conversations. We discovered that it’s simpler to say, “Hey, have you ever seen these lemons?” than, “Have you learnt the signs of breast most cancers?” Our app opens the door to those essential, life-saving discussions.
For instance, a girl in an African village with breast most cancers had been ostracized as a result of her neighborhood thought she was cursed. Someday, she noticed one in every of our volunteers giving a chat utilizing our visuals and acknowledged her personal situation. Not solely did we assist get her into remedy, however our workforce returned to her village to show everybody that most cancers is a illness, not a curse.
We additionally heard of a boyfriend who discovered our visible of the 12 indicators of breast most cancers on social media and confirmed it to his girlfriend. Weeks later, she seen a lump and, remembering the visible, pushed her docs for a check-up. She was recognized with breast most cancers and began remedy—all as a result of her boyfriend discovered our posts.
How does your app and the ‘Lemonistas’ work collectively to unfold consciousness?
To unfold our mission, we use a two-part method that mixes highly effective know-how with a human contact.
First, the Know Your Lemons app acts as a whole information in your pocket. It has our visible self-exam information that makes discovering a lump simpler. To convey that training to life, we’ve over 1,200 skilled volunteers referred to as “Lemonistas”. They go into their communities to show hands-on courses utilizing digital shows and bodily props, like a mannequin of a lemon with a lump inside. Our companions in Tanzania, for instance, have seen ladies come to their clinic at stage one or two as an alternative of stage 4. They estimate that 12 lives had been saved in 18 months, which reveals how our instruments within the palms of passionate volunteers could make a life-saving distinction.
How has being on Google Play helped your mission?
It’s actually about making this accessible to folks. Among the best opinions we ever obtained began as a one-star overview. A consumer could not register due to a bug. We fastened it and replied to her touch upon the Play Retailer. A few months later, she modified her overview to 5 stars as a result of our app had helped her discover her breast most cancers. She stated the way in which we defined the self-exam made all of the distinction. That means to attach straight with customers on the Play Retailer is so necessary; with out it, she won’t have discovered it till it was too late.
The app is at all times evolving. What’s subsequent for Know Your Lemons?
We just lately added a function for firms to supply a breast well being profit to their staff, which helps them get on the precise screening plan and connects them to assets like genetic counseling. The following huge function we’re including is an AI-powered matchmaking device for newly recognized sufferers. It should join them with affected person advocacy organizations which can be particular to their wants—whether or not it’s a sure sort of breast most cancers or assist for folks with younger kids. Most sufferers do not know these assets exist, so we convey the assistance on to them. Uncover different inspiring app and sport founders featured in #WeArePlay.