The Charitable Network For Community Empowerment "CHANCE" in commemoration of international women's organised a 2 faced intervention program for women and young persons at University of Lagos to end bias against women folks.
The convener and program director Mrs Olajumoke Saliu who quoted Gloria Steinem, world-renowned feminist, journalist and activist in a speech delivered by her saying "The story of women's struggle for equality belongs to no single feminist nor to any one organisation but to the collective efforts of all who care about human rights".
According to Olajumoke, the above quote predicated the reasons CHANCE chose to celebrate women's achievements and increased visibility through a two-phased celebration of international women's Day.
In a press interview with the program director at the event, Olajumoke said;
"It has been a two-phased celebration. One was a market outreach in Bariga to 100 women which include traders and street sweepers. They were gifted food items to celebrate their strengths.
"The second phase is to tell the youth that they can upskill. They can do more with a lot of strengths, the right skills, honesty, and to be the best they can be and also to forge ahead for gender equality.
"Gender equality is not just what you say by mouth, or just by request, you must be ready for the opportunity when it comes. That is why we have speakers from Nigeria and in diaspora to speak to them on topical issues that will enlighten them, broaden their knowledge horizon so they can be able to do more. That is what we have been able to achieve with this program.
"We visited only Bariga market because it is the closest market to this place in terms of proximity. If we are doing two functions on the same day, we think we should optimize our time so that we are not taking too much to start the other.
"We understand breast and cervical cancer is quite rampant these days, it is something we need serious awareness and sensitisation for. Women can be aware and know their health status which is why we created an avenue for 200 women to be screen so they can know if they are either safe or have to do something about it". She said
Mr Femi Olaleye, a facilitator at the event and medical director at Optimal Cancer Care Foundation in an interview with journalists after his presentation said;
"In order to end bias against women for a sustainable future, our women should be able to have a cancer screening service being delivered to them like it is done in other part of the developed world where women form the bedrock of the society and the fact is well recognised.
"So we are using this platform and today's message to remind women that yes we indeed recognise you as a bedrock of society, our government should do more to improve welfare of women through cancer screening.
"We are not asking the government to build multi million or billion dollars hospital, we are not asking government to equip it with big machineries, something as simple as cancer screening is what we are asking for to help us have a sustainable future for our women.
"We have had a lecture on cervical/breast vancer. We have taught women how to do self breast examination, we have told them the dangers of HPV and we recognise that HPV can cause cervical cancer, a sexually transmitted disease.
Olaleye said he expects the participants after the seminar they will attend cancer screening and more importantly our policy makers would start looking at ways to improve the uptake for cancer screening for our women and reduce the incidence of cancer. He said all women that are sexually active should do self examination or better still consult their doctors, friends or read about it online.
Panelists and facilitators at the event include: Mrs Titilope Adewusi, Ms. Adeola Akinmola, Mrs Ayotunde Ogunmuyiwa, and Dr Femi Olaleye.
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