The administration assistant of Ha’u Hili atu Kura/Cure is My Choice (HALIKU) NGO Pascoela Barreto said the NGO will continue to raise awareness in the communities of rural areas about breast and cervical cancer.
She added that one of HALIKU’s role is to enhance people’s knowledge, in particular women’s about how a person could contract breast cancer and cervix and howpatients with diseases can be transferred to the national hospital HNGV to undergo treatment.
“We’ve raised awareness many times and since rural residents have never heard and seen what cancers look like, they were surprised and scared by the images of cancers they saw,” said Barreto in Bidau, Dili.
HALIKU has raised awareness in communities across 10 of the 13 municipalities of Timor-Leste and will continue to other municipalities as well as secondary school students so they are familiar with how cancers work and identify the symptoms of cancers early for adequate treatment.
She said also that some of the ways they use to share information to people is by organizing seminars in rural areas, distributing pamphlets with information and images on it, and by community’s radio at the grassroots levels.
Within a year, HALIKU was able to identify 31 patients with breast or cervical cancer who were taken to undergo treatment at the National Hospital with one patient transferred overseas for treatment due to the severity of the condition.
HALIKU Founder Kristy Sword Gusmão thanked the secretariat of State for Vocational Training Policy and Employment (SEPFOPE) for including HALIKU’s team in their careers fair activities so it was able to distribute pamphlets with basic information to the community and youths in rural areas about cancers.
Founder Gusmão said she had a discussion with the manager of Fundasaun Alola (FA) to include HALIKU’s programs in the group activities of helping mothers in villages to raise awareness for women in rural areas.
“I have talked to the program manager for Mother and Child Health at the FA and they said they would be happy to include HALIKU’s programs in their so that when they go offer training to women in rural areas, the FA is able to share information about cancers and encourage people with cancers to go to health facilities,” said Gusmão.
The HALIKU founder added education is very important for the community as evidence demonstrates that identifying diseases early can save people’s lives.
