Let’s not sugar-coat awareness drives
FOLLOWING August’s celebrations of women during Women’s Month, October will once again thrust women into the spotlight, with important lessons that need to be learned.
October marks National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and with the statistic that one in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer, as reported on the National Breast Cancer Foundation’s website, there is no room for the community to be apathetic about early detection.
But apathy is not easy to conquer. It seems that sometimes, despite whole months being dedicated to causes, actions that need to be taken just aren’t.
Take Women’s Month as an example. The month is dedicated to remembering the Women’s March to the Union Buildings on 9 August 1956, and while important events were held in the community to remember the day and celebrate women, such as the unveiling of street names dedicated to four of the march’s stalwarts and a monument to democracy in the Joburg CBD, it seemed that most events were held for the sake of it.
Our journalists covered countless spa days where women were treated to massages for Women’s Month. While there is no denying that a massage may be quite a treat and, of course, deserved by the women in our community, such events serve as sugarcoats in the name of awareness, and do not allow for people to open up a dialogue or act on their needs or challenges confronting them as such a month should do.
And action is what is needed when it comes to breast cancer awareness. According to the National Breast Cancer Foundation, the key message that needs to be learnt is that early detection is paramount. The foundation says when breast cancer is detected early, the five-year survival rate is 100 percent and the website guides community members to create an early detection plan which will help them receive reminders to do breast self-exams, schedule clinical breast exams and mammograms.
Public benefit organisation, PinkDrive shares the message that early detection saves lives. The organisation powers the country’s first mobile PinkDrive Mammography Unit as well as an educational unit to bring that message to communities around the country.
So, with help at hand, and at the dawn of a month that promotes breast cancer awareness, let us not be left behind in this dialogue which could help save your, or another’s, life.
Details: www.pinkdrive.co.za; www.nationalbreastcancer.org
