Men slip on heels to raise breast cancer awareness
A GROUP of men slipped on a pair of pink heels over the weekend to walk in Cedar Square, Fourways, in aid of October being Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
The initiative was driven by the Rakgadi Foundation in partnership with the Cancer Association of SA (Cansa) to raise awareness of breast cancer among men and women.
According to Cansa health specialist, Professor Michael Herbst, about 10 000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer every year, and 30 women are diagnosed daily.
“Although breast cancer in males is rare, (it’s) not impossible and shouldn’t be labelled a women’s disease; breast cancer has become a condition amongst men,” said Herbst.
Rakgadi Foundation founder and director Semali Moeti said culturally men were not vocal discussing certain
issues or taboo topics that affected them in an open forum in fear of being embarrassed or stigmatised.
“In a time where male domination persists in society, and many doctrines reinforce the tradition of
patriarchy, men usually find themselves being misinformed or not taking the opportunity (if any) to ensure they are informed as far as their financial, physical, and mental state is concerned.
“To build an inclusive society for all, it’s important that both men and women are empowered so that each one does not have to go through life alone,” said Rakgadi.
Brennan Mazwi, one of the walkathon participants said he took part to represent the non-binary and transgender community living with cancer. He added that apart from Covid-19, cancer was one of the biggest health issues in our midst and awareness was still needed to be raised about it.
Herbst added that Cansa was restricted in spreading awareness about the different types of cancer during the peak of Covid-19 and that their cancer care homes were unable to stretch to those in the rural areas.
“As the lockdown restrictions eased our services started navigating their way through again and we have managed to have our staff staying at care homes for a month.
“Despite the restrictions on movement in the hard levels of the lockdown we managed to launch our toll-free cancer line which allows anyone who is involved or affected by cancer to receive counselling …” said Herbst.