Fundraiser hears how poor screening has meaning here, too
Guests at an Upturn backed charity dinner to bring British breast cancer screening to Bangladesh, will discover that a lack of checks means deaths in Oldham, too.
Early detection results in a better chance of survival and the initiative will see volunteer medics travel to Bangladesh to test females for a condition that is the biggest killer of women in South Asia.
But speaker Dr Anita Sharma will also urge attendees to coax females in their family here into getting tested regularly, too. The women’s health campaigner will also ask men to step out of making decisions about their wives’ and daughter’s gynaecological health.
For her part, the founder of the Endometriosis Awareness North campaign, will continue to call for cancer information to be translated into different languages and introduce more flexible screening times.
“What little research there is on screening within the UK South Asian community points to an alarming dearth of women attending” said Dr Sharma. “In fact, it is 4% lower in the British Bangladeshi community than it is in Bangladesh!
This is because they are more frequently from disadvantaged backgrounds, are in low paid jobs and therefore cannot attend during office hours. Ignorance and stigma also play a part and that is something all of us should reduce – because this is a matter of life or death for women in Bangladesh and Oldham.”
Just 47% of women from urban areas of Bangladesh attend screening appointments. In Britain, the highest uptake was amongst white women at 75%. But that figure dropped to 63% amongst black females and plummeted to just 43% amongst women from British Bangladeshi heritage.
Henna Chowdhury, founder of the Henna Foundation, a charity encouraging Muslim women to be the very best version of themselves, added: “There is a breast cancer screening crisis amongst our communities here and across South Asia. We need a massive boost in awareness, and this might be a beginning with this event in Oldham.”
Held at the Blue Tiffin restaurant in Royton on Wednesday 4 December (7pm), the event is the latest in a series of fundraisers designed to improve lives abroad and raise awareness of issues closer to home.
One of the organisers of the evening, Muzahid Khan DL, said: “The Bangladeshi community has been contributing to life in our borough since the mid 1970’s and while initially any funding raised went to health and poverty projects in Asia, people are now looking at problems here, too. The two cannot be separated. Gifts of time and money should be given to those in need wherever they are. By opening our hearts to charity, we learn so much and discover that while we may sometimes be different, what we are facing is remarkably alike.”
Tickets for the dinner are priced at £20 each and are available by calling 0161 628 2005 or emailing amanafoundation@hotmail.co.uk
The Breast Cancer Awareness Charity Dinner is supported by Upturn, Doctors Worldwide, the Henna Foundation, Amana, AKIJ Insaf and the Ayaan Foundation.
