Staff Reporter
As the October breast cancer month comes to an end, Mother Touch Group of Schools (MTGS) on Friday staged massive breast cancer awareness where students and school patrons went into their surrounding community raising awareness on breast cancer.
The students marched in the communities around their school in Tynwald sharing breast cancer awareness material, and inviting the community to their school so that they can be screened and tested.
Their biggest message was early detection can save lives, they called on all women and men to immediately get their lumps checked in time.
Breast cancer awareness month has been used for decades to increase awareness and screening for breast cancer.
MTGS matron Modester Nziraindefu said that it was a busy day for the students as they were out and about spreading cancer awareness messages and inviting their surrounding community to the school premises where they had their medical professions screening and doing tests for free.
The medical team also took time to educate the community and the students on how to eat and stay healthy.
“We are offering breast cancer screening. As a school, we have a group of doctors, a group of nurses, and we are screening breast cancer for free. We are also providing all the services, which include sugar test and glucose, we are testing sugar levels, we are also checking BP, and we are also doing other different test as well.
“So, we are doing all the basic tests for our cancer screening day where we have involved the community, men also involved, it’s not just for women. We managed spread the cancer awareness messages via the flyers, via the learners, that the community is free also to join the free screenings and tests,” she said.
“We were also giving learners education in terms of cancer in general, how should they prevent themselves from cancer, we encouraged them to do regular exercises, good feeding habits, zero tolerance to alcohol and tobacco.
“We are also teaching our learners that they should also engage into other things like vaccination, which is being provided with the government for the cervical cancer prevention that is starting at early ages, that is 13-14 years of age. For the senior girls, those who have developed the breast, those we are checking on the lumps, we are saying any form of breast lump should be detected and removed,” said matron Nziraindefu.
MTGS French teacher and rangers matron Mrs Miranda Kadenhere said that they came up with this initiative in an effort to bring doctors to the community and also remove the fear of being screened from the community and o that the students grow up knowing that it’s good to know about the state of their health.
“This was a really good initiative and a learning experience even for us the staff, I didn’t know some of the cancers I heard here today, and the steps to prevent them, so the community greatly benefit and as they say catch them young, our students are the biggest beneficiaries they will grow up well equipped with knowledge to prevent some cancers.
“We understand for some people it’s hard for them to find time to go out to doctors and get screened, but when something like this come to the community it makes the whole process easy.
“People should not be afraid to go out and get tested but rather they should be well equipped and know what to do when an anomaly is detected,” said Mrs Kadenhere.
MTGS former student who was also part of the community which came to get screened and benefit from the free health services Ms Talia Marevesa, said that this initiative was really beneficial especially to women as they came in their numbers compared to men.
“These days it’s really difficult and expensive to get health services and I want to thank the organisers for putting together such an initiative for the community especially for women as they are the ones I saw in their numbers.
“It’s better to be know where you stand and get help, as the doctors said, if breast cancer is detected early one can get help, so I want to encourage all girls to go and get screened as we end the month of October,” said Ms Marevesa.
On Saturday, October 28, 2023 MTGS will host an, “Open and Assessment Day” at their Harare and Selous Senior Schools.
The open and assessment day will start at 09:00hrs to 12:00hrs, prospective students are encouraged to bring a pen, a pencil, and birth certificate.
They have centres in Marimba, Tynwald, Victoria Falls and Selous.
MTGS recently embarked on their biggest school projects so far, the construction of their state of the art senior school in Selous, where they invested a total of US$2.5 million.
MTGS founder Mrs Salome Mutsinze says the group of schools is aiming to be among the 20 best schools in Zimbabwe in terms of standards, academic results and the production of all-round students ready to make a contribution in various spheres of life.