Breast cancer awareness project in Patan, May 2008
In May of 2008 the two co-founders of Pandya Family
Foundation, Tejal and Ela Pandya, went to Ahmedabad, India with the
intention of undertaking a health awareness project. There were no
concrete plans or no specific people to contact. However, the desire to
accomplish their first project was strong. Not knowing where to start,
the driver of the rental car suggested that they meet the Health
Minister, Mr. Vyas, for help. They expressed their desire to undertake
a project to increase the awareness of early breast cancer detection
via self -breast exam. The Minister was very impressed and helpful. His
office put Tejal and Ela in touch with an NGO, Shree Bhrama Samaj Seva
Trust of Patan and town in the Northeast part of Gujarat. This NGO, run
by Mr. Naresh Dave, is actively involved in the health outreach work in
Patan and the surrounding smaller villages. It took Mr. Dave a few days
to understand the importance of what we were there to do. When he
called back he impressed us. He had a proposal of offering the early
breast cancer detection training for his health outreach workers. He
said he had about 50-60 women who were reaching out to the rural areas
for various health related issues and was suggesting that we train them
on this health issue. His only requirement was that we do our
presentation in Gujarati.
We got all the information we had about breast cancer, its risk
factors, treatment options and the techniques of self -breast exam,
translated in to the local language, Gujarati Our driver, Vishnu,
guided us through the process of translation, getting the Gujarati
materials typed, getting the typed material bound together a nice
presentable booklet. Vishnu became our team member once he understood
our purpose for the visit. We even had the symbolic pink fabric ribbon
attached to each booklet.
On the day of the event Mr. Dave impressed us yet again. He had a very
organized plan for the day. He had sent out busses to pick up all the
outreach workers from all the surrounding villages to facilitate their
attendance. He had included the workers of other health related NGOs as
well. The event was all day long; starting with registration, two
morning sessions, lunch break and two afternoon sessions. Local
community leaders were invited, local TV and Newspaper reporters were
informed and two local physicians were also invited upon our request.
During the morning sessions I started with talking about the
significance of early detection of breast cancer and Tejal finished it
off with walking the attendees through the steps of self=breast exam
for detecting cysts and lumps in the breast. The afternoon session
started with the two physicians reinforcing the information provided by
us in the morning sessions and ended with questions from the attendees.
What had started with just an intention ended with a very successful
first project in India.
