Breast cancer awareness – what HR can do to support


SUMMARY

  • “As per the World Health Organization, in 2020, there were 2.3 million women who were diagnosed with breast cancer and 685,000 deaths due to breast cancer, on a global basis.”
  • We quickly cover 4 pillars of action that HR can take to support the fight against breast cancer : raise awareness, organise fundraising, encourage support for people fighting breast cancer, and facilitate actual prevention for your staff and their loved ones.
  • “Breast cancer is not just a female problem. It affects men as well : as husbands, as fathers, and as sons”.
  • Do share your ideas/actions in the comments, we all need inspiration !

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INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES

 


TRANSCRIPT

Hello, and welcome to this episode of Competition Insider. Today, I’d like to talk of Breast Cancer Awareness.

It’s October. October is the month of Breast Cancer Awareness, so I want to discuss this because my mother is a breast cancer survivor. I was looking up numbers and as per the World Health Organization, in 2020, there were 2.3 million women who were diagnosed with breast cancer and 685,000 deaths due to breast cancer, on a global basis. At the end of 2020, there were 7.8 millions of women who were alive and who had been diagnosed with breast cancer in the past five years. And it’s the most prevalent cancer in the world.

So, what can we do as C&B and HR professionals during that month? I think there are four main things that we can do.

1 – Raise breast cancer awareness

The first one is awareness.  We can organize, for example, a lunch- and-share where employees can share their stories, or you can have a non-employee breast cancer survivor coming for lunch and learn.

Of course, lots of organizations also temporarily change their logo to include the pink color, or they put the pink awareness ribbon as their logo.

You could also encourage employees to have a support board, to write a message of support for someone who is fighting against breast cancer or even notes for survivors or deceased loved ones, which would be a nice thing to do.

One thing I would like to highlight, is that you should share education with all, because breast cancer is not just a female problem. It affects men as well : as husbands, as fathers, as sons. And so, it’s important that everybody gets the message that women should self-check and not losing those opportunities.

2 – Fundraising for breast cancer

Another thing that you can do, and the second pillar of your action as HR, is fundraising.

There are walks, raffles, lots of sporting events. For example, in Abu Dhabi, there’s the ADCB Zayed Sports City Pink Run.

You could organize a pink pumpkin contest in the office to capitalize on Halloween, if your organization is celebrating Halloween : put a jar next to each pink pumpkin, and say that the jar that receives the most donations wins. As an organization, you can try to encourage collaboration and involvement by offering a 50-50 match, for example.

3 – Encouraging support for people fighting breast cancer

The third pillar should be to encourage actual support, beyond awareness : employees can show support and solidarity in nonfinancial ways as well.

There are things that are very useful and appreciated by people who are fighting cancer. For instance, you could organise collecting nice scarves and hats, and donate them to a local center where they do chemotherapy.

There are many, many other ways such as organising makeup classes, donating wigs, organizing exercise classes, writing letters, and so on. They help people who are going through this difficult time, both on an emotional and a physical level. And you can also encourage donations to cancer research.

4 – Actual prevention of breast cancer

The final thing and fourth pillar of your action is actual prevention.

For example, in the UAE, Friends of Cancer Patients have been hosting the Pink Caravan for over 11 years. You can book their mobile clinic to do mammograms for women over 40 years old, or organize something similar with your health insurance provider.

The sooner that somebody may find that they have cancer, the better their chance of survival. So, please do take that into account and organize something this month to try and help your employees for that. You can actually save lives through this simple event !

Thank you very much and see you next week.

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