1m girl students benefit from breast cancer awareness

Islamabad: More than one million girl students from across Pakistan have been coached on breast cancer hazards and challenges in last five years under the Youth Programme, a Pink Ribbon and Higher Education Commission’s joint initiative.

The strategic partnership between PRCP and HEC continues as they sign another Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) here at HEC headquarters Islamabad, pledging to create widespread Breast Cancer awareness by directly reaching out female students of all colleges and universities, jointly promoting research projects on different aspects of Breast Cancer, organising professional education seminars and workshops and forming a working group for need assessment and formulation of action plan for next five years.

Chief Executive Officer Pink Ribbon, Mr. Omer Aftab and Executive Director HEC Prof. Dr. Arshad Ali signed the agreement. Omer Aftab showed gratitude towards HEC for their continuous support and said, “This collaboration will help Pink Ribbon expand its outreach across the country. It is very important to make our young girls aware of the prevention and cure of this fatal disease”.

Prof. Dr. Arshad Ali assured all possible support on behalf of HEC. He appreciated Pink Ribbon for reaching out to young girls through educational institutes. He also mentioned successful collaboration between HEC and Pink Ribbon in the past, when over 1,050,000 young girls were reached and given awareness about Breast Cancer only in four years. He also applaud Pink Ribbon for setting up a dedicated breast cancer hospital

Breast Cancer claims more than 40,000 lives every year in Pakistan. One in every ninth woman in Pakistan is at high risk of Breast Cancer. Despite being the Asian nation with highest Breast Cancer prevalence, Pakistan lacks quality diagnosis and treatment facilities. Pink Ribbon is building Pakistan’s first dedicated Breast Cancer Hospital, aiming to reduce female mortality rate through providing state-of-the-art health services.