BREAST CANCER AWARENESS MONTH PRESENTATIONS

 L-R: President Robyn, Rotarian Juanita, Malissa Major, Rotarians Maisie and Carolyn

 - Presentation of  Speaker Certificates

Melissa D. Major, Executive Director The Bahamas Breast Cancer Initiative Foundation (BBCIF) and the  founder of Freedom Survivors, a young adult community (for persons affected by cancer). Mrs. Major presented on their offering of genetic testing and counseling to all newly diagnosed women with breast cancer and ovarian cancer in The Bahamas. In addition, she also spoke of the availability of testing to unaffected relatives of women who are found to carry a mutation in the BRCA1 or BRCA2. Several of the Freedom Survivors attended the meeting with her.

The second presenter was Rotarian Maisie Pinder, Community Outreach Coordinator (COC), One Eleuthera Foundation spoke on her goals of educating the public of their breast cancer risk, a great partnership that has already yielded good fruit. This past June, every community on Eleuthera was visited by community educators and given much needed breast cancer health information. Hence, for Eleuthera, the journey to the cure has begun. Rotarian Maisie was pledged the fullest support of her fellow Rotarians.

The final presentation for the evening was by Rotarian Juanita Pinder, President of the Cancer Society of Eleuthera, who not only spoke of the Breast Cancer Awareness Programme for the women of Eleuthera, but also the genuine need for a Mammography Machine for the island, due to the high rate of cancer in Bahamian women.  She also shared the following statistics: