Global Changemakers

Cancer is increasing worldwide but unfortunately not many organisations are targeting the youth to equip them with the necessary tools to guard against cancer. This makes them the most vulnerable group at risk. According to the World Health Organisation, in 2005, Cancer killed 7 million people world wide, this number was more than AIDS, Malaria & Tuberculosis combined yet these are the major infectious diseases that are common on the African continent. WHO also projects that by 2020; there will be 15 million new cancer cases each year with 70% of these in from the developing world. Sub-Saharan Africa is projected to have more than one million new cancer cases each year. Despite this oblique picture, Cancer is still not a major concern in many African countries; which is evidenced by the fact that radiotherapy, one of the commonest ways of treating cancer, is only available in 21 countries in Africa. South Africa has the highest rates of skin cancer in Africa and is second to Australia in the world skin cancer rates. Furthermore in South Africa, less than 50% of these cancers are diagnosed early enough or at all for effective treatment. However Cancer survival rates are higher than 70% with early diagnosis. South Africa also has one of the highest youth smoking rates: in 2000 the prevalence of smoking amongst 16 – 24 year olds was 18.7%.

 

With all the above as a guiding star, Michael Kayemba and I (Joe Fahed), equipped with the experience we got as Global Change makers during Africa’s Youth Summit 2009, decided to form an advocacy team amongst a few interested students at our boarding school (African Leadership Academy, Johannesburg – South Africa) to say NO to cancer. As a result, we formed a team of 9 young activists: Michael Kayemba (Uganda), Kylie Marais (South Africa), Musatondwa Mafelatshuma (South Africa), Joe Fahed (Lebanon), Cynthia Charchi (Kenya), Andile Justice (South Africa), Yara Pricilla Bule (Mozambique), Thatohatsi Sefuthi (Lesotho), and John Sankara (Kenya). In our attempt, we decided to start up HACA (Human Alliance for Cancer Awareness), a pioneer youth organization in the fight against cancer. HACA believes in the power of the youth in stirring both behavioural and societal change. This is because the youth are at a turning point in their lives where they are struggling to discover who they truly are; they are filled with lots of energy and vigour to try out many things, and this could be an engine for positive change if they were well equipped. Hence, HACA is targeting mainly school-going youth between the ages of 13 – 20 years from across all ethnicities, races and income classes.

 

In the start up phase, we went through a lot of research and situational analysis to reflect on what is really needed within our society and how we can meet those needs, regarding cancer awareness. As a result, we set out our mission and vision to reflect short, medium and long term goals as follows:

Mission

To create cancer awareness by sparking the interest of the youth and prompting them to practice simple preventive measures

Vision (medium)

To make HACA alumni within Johannesburg knowledgeable and sensitive about cancer; thus effecting positive behavioural change by June 2010

Vision (long term)

To reduce the Cancer Mortality in progress, giving many a chance to live as prevention is better than cure.

 

Our mission and vision are our driving force and so we have modelled our strategy to focus on only two types of Cancer; Lung and Skin Cancer because they both could be reduced through behavioural change at a young age; such as protection against UV-light or giving up smoking, for instance. HACA thus works on starting up HACA clubs at various high schools. The club members meet up regularly to discuss cancer related matters and spread awareness within their school, families and larger communities. In order to help the start-up of those clubs, we decided to create some form of a kit (HAC-Kit) that would serve club heads in respective clubs in running the club activities for the beginning period of operation (8 weeks). We have just finished developing the HAC-Kit and so we are about to print all the material in the following weeks, with the assistance from Trainiac (trainiac.com) (a learning aides’ developing company, which bought into HACA’s Vision)

We are also very thankful to British Council Global Change makers’ munificent grant which kicked started a lot of our activities and which were still using in the packaging and delivery of the HAC-Kit and helping kick start HACA clubs we’ll be launching very soon. We have been able to successively reach out to three target high schools within Johannesburg in which we are going to launch HACA as soon as we have mass produced the HAC-Kit. It is gratifying to say the Team has worked tirelessly in making sure that the kit is completed by the end of this academic year. The Team also put tremendous effort in making the material insightful yet creative and fun to follow. It was such a challenge to come up with creative lesson plans and game designs for our HAC-Kit so that it would be attractive enough for young people to join the club and get inspired.

 

HACA currently targets high schools in Johannesburg due to location constraints. However, our hope is that HACA would progressively spread to other parts of South Africa, and later to other nearby countries and so on. Since we realized that our financial needs are going to be large, we saw the need to reach out to various external entities for support. We have already established links with the National Health Laboratory Services (NHLS). Through the NHLS, we were invited to visit the National Institute for Occupational Health (NIOH) where we got lots of advice, further contacts, as well as insights on how to go about our awareness work amongst the youth. We were also offered a lot of certified data that we used in the development of the HAC-Kit. In the same light, HACA is striving to establish contacts with Discovery Health South Africa and this was as a result of our visit to Johannesburg General Hospital where we identified the need of the oncology ward to offer more entertainment outlets to the cancer patients. Hence, we have written proposals asking for funding to purchase a television and make magazines’ subscription.

 

In addition, HACA plans on having its own brand for personalized items that would be sold out at schools and within communities to spread cancer awareness and also fundraise for future volunteering activities within needy communities and hospitals. Thus far, we have produced UV-detector arm bands made out of photo chromatic plastic beads that change colour when exposed to UV light. We also made personalized HACA T-shirts and sold them out at our school as the first HACA club was launched, 2 months ago. To help more in our advertising, we created a HACA face book group and developed a mobilizing video clip.

 

As part of the community service program at my school, HACA went through several board meetings wherein we professionally had to present our project plan to a board of experts who hold us accountable to our promised milestones and advise us on various matters and obstacles.

 

My team has done a wonderful job in just a couple of months so far, thanks to our enthusiasm, dedication, profound interest in Cancer and awareness work. It is important to note however that Cancer is a complex topic on the world agenda, which is not fully understood thus this has lead to a number of painful setbacks which have indeed been learning events for the Team. Working with the HACA team has made me grow a lot as it developed my leadership skills and sense of responsibility. It is amazing to be part of such a team in which, every member shows dedication and passion to the common goal of the entire team. This attitude pushes the person to give in their best and meet all promises.

HACA

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