– First Lady urges early screening for a fighting chance against cancer
The Guyana Telephone and Telegraph (GTT) on Wednesday concluded its month-long ‘Pinktober’ activities, honouring participants who assisted the organisation in spreading cancer awareness.
Hosted at GTT’s head office, Brickdam, Georgetown, the event saw Guyana Cancer Foundation (GFC) Chief Executive Office, Bibi Hassan, volunteers and donors being appreciated for their awareness work throughout the month of October.
Hassan was also presented with a cheque from GTT of over $4 million – proceeds from the 5K/10 walk-run held in October, which saw over 5000 persons participating.
In her remarks, Hassan said the funds garnered will be used to expand the range of support services her organisation provides, which will include prostate cancer screenings in the new year.
She commended GTT for endorsing her organisation’s programmes and for utilising its corporate capacity to raise awareness about the prevalence of the disease in Guyana through the ‘No Bra Day’ initiative, the 5k/10k Walk and Pink Fridays activities, among others.
“This was an activity that I have fought for for 12 years now. And finally I have had success, whatever I had visualised materialised for me. After working with another organisation, for years I wanted to be able to let off those balloons, over 2000 of them into the air and because of GTT, I was able to do that and I thank them,” the CEO said.
GTT also collaborated with private sector businesses and other entities such as Pulse Entertainment, which hosted the Pinktober Pretty in Pink Benefit Dinner and Synergistic Blends Choir and Chronix, which will be hosting the Celebration of Life and Smile Guyana concerts, respectively.
Following her remarks, Kerwin Bollers of Hit and Jams Entertainment, Robbie Singh of Pulse Entertainment and others were honoured for their support.
Meanwhile, First Lady Sandra Granger in her brief remarks reiterated calls for early cancer screening, highlighting the importance.
“To especially our younger people, you need to start having early annual check-ups because that is how you capture all the infirmities that you might have at an early stage. Very often, when people go to the cancer centre and or are diagnosed, they are at stage three or four and that is because they have waited until they cannot bear the pain anymore,” Granger cautioned.
She further cautioned women in particular, who according to her always strive to put people first, to put themselves first and to be screened.
“I urge you women, especially when it comes to breast and cervical cancer to put yourself first!”
The First Lady further commended GTT for their tremendous Pinktober initiative and encouraged other members of the corporate community to emulate their example as cancer affects all segments of the population. “I hope that [GTT] can influence other members of the corporate community to follow them in this practice of corporate social responsibility,” she said.
The event concluded with the attendees blowing out candles in memories of those lost to cancer and a mini concert of what is to be expected from GTT’s Mega Gospel concert to be held at the National Stadium on November 3.
