by Lorraine Anyango .
Her Excellency the First Lady of Kisumu County, today launched an innovative cancer prevention and management program, that will be implemented by Amref Health Africa, in conjunction with Roche East Africa, in Kisumu county.
The goal of the unique program is to increase access to breast and cervical cancer care (preventive, curative & rehabilitative services) by ensuring inclusivity of community members living with disabilities.
The pilot will initially target 2 disability areas (visual, as well as hearing and speech impairment), before scaling to other disabilities based on learnings that will have been documented.
Mama County Dorothy Nyongó acknowledged the proposition, as a noble idea, and formerly endorsed the 14 Community Health Volunteers (CHVs) who have been tasked with the mandate of implementing the program.
The composition of the 14 CHVs is unique as it comprises; 6 CHVs living with hearing and speech impairment, 4 CHVs leaving with visual impairment, and 4 CHVs without any disability.
Amref Health Africa will leverage its Leap Smart technology to train the hearing and speech impaired using visuals which work for them, delivered through smart phones illustrating cases of breast and cervical cancer-screening, symptoms, and interpretation of results.
Train the blind, by deploying simplified audio content to the target audience in their preferred language for ease of understanding. This will be achieved using Leap’s Interactive Voice Recording (IVR) functionality.
The Culmination of the event was the crowning of Her Excellency the first lady as the brand Ambassador of the Roche E. A funded project, after which she witnessed the signing of an MOU between Amref Health Africa and the County Department of Health-Kisumu.
Present during the MOU signing ceremony were Dr. Gregory Ganda, Ag CECM-Health, Kisumu County, Amref Health Innovations, Operations & Delivery Lead, and Mr. Peter Otieno. The CEO of JOOTRH, Dr. George Rae was also present to grace the occasion. Ms. Wairimu, from the Africa Cancer Foundation, also represented other Ngo partners from the cancer space. Community members living with disabilities were also not left behind, as they also attended the event and were offered cervical cancer as well as breast cancer screening services after the function.
