SpeakUP

Inspiration

We, the contributors to this program, have a friend at our ballet studio, who was involved with the inequalities that women face today. She was assaulted one night and was hurt on the inside and outside. We felt terrible and sickened after listening to her story and felt awful that we couldn't do anything but comfort her.

Entering Girls ReCode Hacks, we found the opportunity to create a project as a start to our journey in promoting gender equality and social justice. Witnessing the struggles women and marginalized groups face in their daily lives, we knew that we could not be bystanders anymore and that we had to speak up.

What it does

SpeakUP prompts the user to choose an option from the menu. The menu consists of 3 options, add a report, look up a report, and cancel. Adding the report asks for information such as name, the harasser's name, location, description, and the witnesses. The inputted data will be stored in a file for use. Using multiple functions, the program is able to look up and delete a report.

How we built it

We separated our code into functions with specified actions. For example, the function called 'add_report' is used to add a report. The choice of the user is processed by a while loop, which calls the function based on the input of the user.

Challenges we ran into

One challenge we ran into was trying to save data into a file that can be stored for later use. We wanted the program to be able to bring back previous inputted reports, even after re-running the program. As for programming experience, we've spent almost a year and a half learning Python so it was a far reach for us to try to use files.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We're proud of finally accomplishing a simple program that can help women speak up instead of keeping important matters concealed as something that should be brought to light and resolved. We are also proud of learning how to use files in Python even though it is a minor accomplishment.

What we learned

We learned that coding is a way we express ourselves by putting two things we are passionate about together. In terms of teamwork, it was discovered that we work very well together in the field and that it is more enjoyable than working individually.

What's next for SpeakUP

SpeakUP is planned to be developed into a mobile app with graphics and GUIs. Mobile app development is something we look forward to learning to upgrade SpeakUP.