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Cancer lobby group gets shot in the arm

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Beverages manufacturer Schweppes Limited has come to the rescue of parents with children afflicted by cancer after donating $2 000 towards the purchase of essential drugs last week.

Beverages manufacturer Schweppes Limited has come to the rescue of parents with children afflicted by cancer after donating $2 000 towards the purchase of essential drugs last week.

BY AARON UFUMELI

Kidzcan executive director Ntombi Muchuchuti (centre) accepts a donation from Schweppes marketing and public affairs manager Unaiswi Nyikadzino  (right) while Michelle Mayiseni  looks on at a ceremony held in Harare last Friday
Kidzcan executive director Ntombi Muchuchuti (centre) accepts a donation from Schweppes marketing and public affairs manager Unaiswi Nyikadzino(right) while Michelle Mayiseni looks on at a ceremony held in Harare last Friday

Schweppes marketing and public affairs manager Unaiswi Nyikadzino told guests at a handover ceremony that the company’s help to Kidzcan started in 2013.

Most organisations have been pouring millions of dollars into HIV and Aids programmes, but cancer has become one of the deadliest killers across the globe.

Nyikadzino said Kidcan had been very consistent and they felt obliged as a company to support its cause.

“When we sit sometimes in organisations and we look at our plans and our budgets, it is very important for us to ensure that we are also supporting communities. It doesn’t matter how bad the environment gets because if it’s tough for us as business, what more for people who are in a struggling economy where there is a high unemployment rate?” she said.

She said there was need to put aside something for the communities they operate in.

Nyakadzino said many people are forced to go to private hospitals which are very expensive and ordinary people could not afford it.

“I know cancer is not a big thing for people, many will want to talk and focus on HIV and put a lot of money into it. But as an organisation, we stepped out of that space because there are so many people that are dealing with it already,” she said, adding that when they looked at cancer, everyone had been affected in one way or the other.

Kidzcan executive director Ntombi Muchuchuti said cancer was affecting even children as young as 13.

“There is a misconception that breast or prostate cancer afflicts older male or female people, but we can say for a fact that it’s wrong. We have got children at 13 years with breast cancer and a child at nine months with cancer of the testicles. We also have a little girl at 14 years with cancer of the ovaries in our database, which is more than 2 000,” Muchuchuti said.

Muchuchuti said what Kidzcan was doing in early detection, was to educate everybody and refer them on time because the survival rate of a child with cancer when diagnosed on time was very high.

One surviving cancer patient Arundel High School Lower Six student Michelle Mayiseni, who got her leg amputated in 2012 after early detection, praised Schweppes for its timely intervention.