CAPED Trust, a Cancer Awareness, Prevention and Early Detection Trust, India -- a platform working towards the cause since 2014 -- has announced a series of activities during January to create mass awareness about the disease.
January also happens to be cervical cancer awareness month.
The trust will be organising 14 awareness sessions in schools, colleges and corporate; 14 screening sessions in low-income areas of Delhi NCR and eventually wrapping it up with an event in association with the Coke Studio Live.
Over the past three years, the estimated number of cases of cervical cancer has witnessed an increase from 99,000 to 1 lakh to 1.01 lakh, as per government statistics. Thus, every 8 minutes, one Indian woman dies due to cervical cancer, according to the data from the National Cancer Registry Program of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).
Cervical cancer is one of India's ironies. The irony is that despite cervical cancer being the only 100 per cent preventable cancer among women; it is the largest women killing cancer in the country. In the more than five years since conception that Caped India has been organising sessions with the relevant target segments to educate and facilitate screening.
In the previous years, Caped in association with different esteemed organisations have been doing various activities to reach out to more people and make them aware on this women-related cancer.
Caped created a fundraiser project ? 'Theatre for a Cause' to raise funds and to create mass awareness on the cause.
Talking about the cause, CEO Mridu Gupta sais,''Caped Trust has chosen the cause of women-related cancers with a focus on cervical cancer. The mission is to identify and create different arenas to spread awareness and knowledge among women and empower them to take action for their health.''
The awareness and screening sessions are aimed to increase their outreach exponentially, he said, adding ''We are aiming to screen more than one lakh rural women for cervical cancer.''