Breast cancer survivors and patients have been given basic knowledge about the disease, to help them become active activists in the fight against the non-communicable disease.

Dr Fidel Rubagumya, the director of a project dubbed ‘Imenye Mobile Support Group’, said last week after a week-long intensive training that the aim was to empower survivors and patients with knowledge about breast cancer and teach them how they can use the knowledge gained to educate the general population about breast cancer.

"We believe that the message given by someone who has lived the life of a cancer patient will be perceived differently from when it is given by someone else. Breast cancer survivors know what they went through, especially during diagnosis and treatment, and there are things that they wished would have been done differently that can only be changed by policy-makers,” he said.

He noted that, through advocacy, the survivors and patients are better positioned once educated, to tell their stories and work with policy makers to change policies.

"One way of doing this is by compiling their stories and share with policy makers to change some policies, for example, a delay in transferring breast cancer suspected patients from health centres to referral hospitals,” Rubagumya said.

"We believe that if these suspected cases were transferred directly from health centres to referral hospitals instead of passing through the district hospitals, it would shorten the delay in diagnosis hence better treatment outcomes,” he said.

Dr Diane Andrea Ndoli, the coordinator of the project, said sharing the touching testimonies of the survivors was the best way to teach people in their communities about the disease.

"We are trying to give them a package of breast cancer knowledge about every treatment available and every detail about breast cancer. To fulfill our objective, the survivors need to share their testimonies and surgery experiences. Cancer patients need morale, preparedness and support from family members,” she said.

Philippa Kibugu, the founder of Breast Cancer Initiative East Africa Inc., the organisation that hosted the training, said although the Government of Rwanda was doing a commendable job in fighting the disease, there was more that needed to be done to create more awareness.

"In Rwanda, although we still have limited resources, strides are still being made and there is hope that we are going to have mammogram and radio therapy at the provincial level and people are now more aware of breast cancer than it was in the past. However, there is more that needs to be done and we can prevent metastatic that makes cancer hard to treat,” she said.

Imenye Mobile Support Group project is funded by the American Cancer Society through the Global Scholar Programme.

The Global Scholar Program empowers high- achieving young professionals from developing countries to lead effective cancer control advocacy campaigns.

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