Molly Melching arrived in Senegal in the 70s as a student for what was supposed to be just six months, but instead spent the majority of her life working through the organization she founded, Tostan—which means “breakthrough” in the Wolof language, to convince more than 8,000 communities across eight West African countries to abandon female genital cutting, or FGC. The success she’s found is rare—Each year, the World Health Organization says, up to 3 million girls in Africa are subjected to genital mutilation, and up to 200 million women live with its consequences. We talked to her in 2011 about FGC and again in 2020 about COVID-19 in rural Senegalese communities.