Welisane Foundation, partners take breast cancer awareness walk to Douala.

The walk in Douala on October 28, drew the cottons on the month-long activities carried by Welisane Foundation and its partner, 'Dare To Live with Anjoh', both onsite, online and the media to mark the Breast Cancer Awareness Month, also known as Pink October.

The annual campaign seeks to raises awareness about breast cancer impact, its causes, prevention, diagnosis, and treatment. This year’s edition was held under the distinguished patronage of the Minister of Public Health with the theme, 'bridging the care gap by fighting together". 

Welisane Foundation and Dare To Live with Anjoh took many to the streets of Douala, with sensitisation messages right down to the Douala Parcours Vita where persons were offered free screening on breast cancer.

The disease has been marked as one of the most infectious and fast-killing cancer types mostly affecting women. The World Health Organization estimated, in 2020, that there were 2.3 million women diagnosed with breast cancer with 685,000 deaths globally. 

Founder of Welisane Foundation leading fitness exercise at Parcours Vita-Douala

As of the end of 2020, WHO data noted that there were 7.8 million women alive who were diagnosed with breast cancer in the past five years, making it the world’s most prevalent cancer. Breast cancer occurs in every country of the world in women at any age after puberty, but with increasing rates in later life. Amongst 10 women screened, eight are said to manifest symptoms of breast cancer. However 0.5-1% of men are infected by breast cancer globally. 

“All should get involved”

True to her mission to curb the prevalence in Cameroon, the founding president of Welisane Foundation, Mokwe Welisane Nkeng, said it was important for all to get involved.

"We want to get the entire population of Cameroon involved and you know the biggest cities are Yaoundé and Douala, so we want to get these parts of the country really mobilised for the cause of breast cancer. Throughout the years we worked in rural and semi-urban areas, notwithstanding Yaoundé and Douala are the epicentres," she said.

Leading the noble cause against breast cancer, Welisane said it's important because the general idea around the foundation is for women to know their rights. 

"We noticed that women do not take care of themselves, they take care of any other person except themselves…we are calling on women in particular to know about the dangers of breast cancer...get checked because you can't pour from an empty cup, start with yourself so you can take care of your entourage," she added.

Louiza Manka, Chief Operations Officer of Dare to Live with Anjoh, emphasised that the two foundations are sending a message that early detection saves lives.

"The only way we can achieve these objectives as the theme says, bridging the care gap by fighting together, is through early screening, so that women will be able to know if there any signs and symptoms. Any woman who will be positive for screening will be referred to partner hospitals for more elaborate screening and care," Manka noted.

The medical personnel called on women and men to regularly check their breast in front of a mirror. 

Symptoms to watch out for, she said, are noddles, boils, abnormal pains, inverted nipples for people who were not born with inverted nipples... orange peels skin, flaky skin around the breast area, noddles around the armpit, abnormal discharge on the nipples etc.

Describing the self-care process, Manka told participants to lift one hand across their heads while maintained straight, use the three middle fingers to press the breast starting from the nipples to the upper armpit area in circular motion. The participants at the end of the day, expressed delight to have been part of the noble cause.

Medic demonstrating how to self-check breast cancer

One of them, Elomo Jemea Mokwe, revealed that she has learned a lot from the screening and sports walk. In the same light, Forbang Batcham said he took part in the campaign because men are also prone to be infected with breast cancer. 

"Women should not be left alone in the fight," he said.

Batcham believes if more men get involved, more lives will be saved.

After the awareness walk, the team went to hospitals and patients' houses to support them, gave help to children who have been orphaned because they lost their parents due to breast cancer.