International Day of the Girl Child and Breast Cancer Awareness marked at Ada West

 

Over the weekend, Ada Gems Network (AGN) made a trip to the Ada West district, in the communities of Anyamam and Akplabanya respectively, to create awareness on breast cancer and empower young girls to take charge of their lives. These were done via house-to-house visits and community group discussions.

All across the world, women in leadership positions are hampered by numerous obstacles, including pervasive and subtle or blatant attitudes and beliefs that women are unequal to men at home, work and in government.

This event was held as part of activities toward the launch of Ada Development Network on 7th November 2020. The awareness creation campaign was marked with education on the need to accept persons with disorders, especially children, as part of the community, and self-check practices in order to detect early symptoms of breast cancer.

Speaking to B&FT at the event, Executive President of the Ada Gems Network, Irene Amakie Sebbie said: “Many women with disorders are people with exceptional necessities, so therefore society should stop stigmatising them but rather help to make them feel the atmosphere of being part of society, because they are human beings like anyone else on Mother Earth”.

“This breast cancer has been a canker in our system for years, and most women and young girls take it for granted or are not aware of it. When we are in the month of October, we celebrate it by casting awareness for such a killer syndrome to be excised from our society,” she added.

Apart from self-examination, one of the things that prevents breast cancer is breast-feeding, which according to most women practitioners makes the breasts healthy. So, women should lead healthy lifestyles to keep their breasts healthy.

Also, as women, they need to seek medical care first before seeking any spiritual intervention when the disease is discovered in their breast. Women who seek spiritual intervention first for the disease always come to the hospital when the disease gets to the worst stage.

Ada Gems Network is a platform for the women’s wing of Ada Development Network to address issues pertaining to women and the girl-child. Its objectives are to nurture and develop the leadership potentials of women; encourage peer-to-peer support for women business owners; and provide inspiration, motivation and empowerment through the stories of women leaders and achievers globally

A major vision of AGN is to be a powerful networking of woman with the relevant support, adequate information, capacity building, global exposure, and resourceful networks “aimed at enabling us to build personal brands and be in positions to be role-models for generations”.

The next activity toward the launch of Ada Development Network (ADN) is a ‘Save The Sea Turtles and Clean-Up Exercise’ to safeguard clean environments for turtles in the Ada-Foah area.