Breast Cancer Awareness Campaign – Lebanon (LeMSIC)

Name of the activity: Breast Cancer Awareness Campaign

Country/NMO: Lebanon (LeMSIC)

Program: Dignified & Non-Discriminatory Healthcare

Type of the activity: Campaign

General description:

Breast cancer is a very widespread cancer in our region.Although it is a very alerting figure, it is paralleled with one that it is very hopeful and optimistic. During our work on the project idea we were worried that our work might not be needed as much since there has been so much work being done by the government in order to raise as much as possible awareness and encourage the women to do the mammography according to the guidelines.The aim of our awareness was to reach the population of people who were in real need of it and this is why we chose the suburbs where the issue is not openly discussed, extremely feared and even tabooed. Because we wanted to target a diversified audience we decided to contact schools with an invitation that doesn’t exclude anyone.We also worked hard on providing actual true stories and experiences of women in order to make the information more relatable to the audience.

Focus area:

Health inequities

Problem statement:

1 of 8 women in Lebanon tend to develop breast cancer. It is the most common kind of cancer in Lebanon and worldwide and at the same time it is the most curable cancer when detected at early stages. Can you imagine the burden we have to spread the appropriate awareness and protect the basic right of equal healthcare for everyone? . Our main slogan was “your life, is mine too”, and our main objective was equal healthcare for every human who has the right to know what to do and how to do it right.

Target groups and beneficiaries:

Our campaign’s target population is definitely every single women out there who is either currently at risk of developing breast cancer, or who should be aware of the subject because the risk awaits her eventually.The awareness we prepared can be grasped by all women, young or old, educated or illiterate,etc.To achieve such a diversified audience of women we spread our awareness in public schools in the suburbs and made sure that the invitation included teachers, staff members, and even men.

Objectives and indicators of success:

Shed the light on the importance of this disease first.We were using our medical information and translating them to a language that everyone can understand easily.
Surveys, researches, and medical histories, were our references to tell all about screening methods and explain all the questions and misconceptions related to this topic. Those concerns were either about how to do it, where to do it, when to do it. We worked on brochures concerned with every location we went to.
Last but not least, one of our objectives for this project was to help medical students engage with the skill of helping others and being an active member of the non-discriminative healthcare system in lebanon.

Methodology:

Our responsibility as medical students lies in the integrity of the information we are communicating with the public. In order to be as accurate as possible in the information we wanted to spread, our presentation was prepared based on highly reliable research with the guidance of our medical doctors at the faculty of medicine. In order to make the material more communicable to the audience without the use of medical jargon and the complicated wording of cancer, the nursing department helped us in preparing a presentation that is very simple to understand yet at the same time includes all what should be known. Trainings were also given to the members to pertain good presentation skills.

Plans for evaluation:

Taking into consideration all the feedback we heard and all the questions we’ve been asked we decided to take this to a whole new level. Some things shouldn’t be left untouched. After witnessing the success of many of our visits and after assessing what we’ve been doing for 4 months, our key to continuity was being built on.We should start first by plans for evaluation, without evaluation and feedback we can’t move any further. Oral feedback you get and some phone calls you receive are just a drop in a very big sea. We decided to have some written evaluations along with 2 members that will distribute these forms in the places we’ve been to so we can get a clear observation of our activity.