When a Personal Tragedy Creates an International Movement
October Is Breast Cancer Awareness Month
October, the month my mother died of breast cancer, happens to be the internationally designated Breast Cancer Awareness Month. While 7 years have gone by, the painful course of the disease and its aftermath remains fresh on my mind. So, when Nina Klotsman, one of Project Kesher’s founding leaders from Cherkassy, Ukraine, was diagnosed with breast cancer which she subsequently succumbed to, Project Kesher activists began to mobilize. Nina, like my mother, had been diagnosed at a late stage of the disease. The goal for Project Kesher was to get women in for early diagnosis and to provide support to those with the disease.
In October 2013, thousands of women in more than 100 communities in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova and Georgia are participating in Project Kesher breast cancer awareness programs.
Seventy percent of the women who attended Project Kesher’s breast cancer prevention programs last year went for breast cancer screening and approximately 1 in 7.5 were diagnosed with breast cancer. More than 550 lives were saved.
PK brought breast cancer education directly to 10,500 women in Belarus, Georgia, Israel, Moldova, Russia and Ukraine and reached an additional 600,000 through more than 100 newspaper articles, television and radio interviews and social networking. We partnered with 54 hospitals, 26 universities, 32 city and regional government offices, 55 Jewish communities and the JDC. More than 8,000 doctors and health clinics joined with us in this work.
Project Kesher has been recognized as a leader in breast cancer education, prevention, treatment and peer support. When PK’s Women’s Health Director, Marina Konstantinova, was interviewed by a Russian-wide news agency, “RIA-news” her interview got nearly 60,000 on-line hits.
Volgograd, a leading community in Project Kesher’s health initiative is one of the cities which will be visited on Project Kesher’s 25th Anniversary trip taking place May 25 – June 2, 2014. The Project Kesher women of Volgograd look forward to sharing their best-practices with trip participants from the United States.
So, as Project Kesher activists kick off year-round programming impacting women’s health this October, the issue remains a very personal one for us all.
Written by Karen Bloom, Chief Advancement Officer, Project Kesher