Unilorin students partner Leah Foundation to fight cancer

In a bid to ensure that more people, especially young women, are better informed and join in the fight against cancer, the University of Ilorin Students' Union, in collaboration with the LEAH Foundation, a pet project of the wife of the Governor of Kwara State, Mrs. Omolewa Ahmed, has organised the first breast and cervical cancer campaign on campus.

Speaking during the sensitisation programme, which provided free screening for breast and cervical cancer, held at the varsity auditorium, Mrs. Ahmed narrated how three women, who had made significant impacts on her life, died of the ailment in the last four years.

Screening exercise

She implored young women to take advantage of the free screening exercise and share what they had learnt with others around them, saying, "It is not about the fact that you have the money to spend; it is not how educated you are; it is about doing the right thing at the right time.

"If you have seen a woman suffer from cancer, you will not pray such a death, not even for your enemy. Sisters, women, daughters, mothers present here, this is the time for us all to come together and fight the scourge that is bent on killing us."

Declaring the event open, the Vice-Chancellor of the university, Prof. AbdulGaniyu Ambali, commended the SUG executive committee for organising a health-related discourse especially with the growing population of the female folks in tertiary institutions.

He said, "Getting the girl child increasingly educated on matters that border on their health either on themselves or their children is like teaching the entire nation and it is one of the fundamental steps in the child survival strategy of this nation and indeed the world.

"90 percent of those who suffer from cervical cancer must have had the infection from the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV)".