The Project “Breast cancer awareness and prevention in Northern Vietnam”

Present at the review workshop were VWU Vice President- Mrs. Tran Thi Huong, representatives of the Peoples’ Hope Japan (PHJ) - Mr. Masahiko Hasumi, General Manager of PHJ HQ, Ms. Jeeranun Mongkondee, Regional Director for Thailand & Vietnam and project teams from Ha Noi, Hai Phong, Ha Nam, Hung Yen, Thai Nguyen and Nam Dinh - the new recipient of the project in 2014.

Speaking at the opening ceremony, VWU Vice president Tran Thi Huong said that "Breast cancer awareness and prevention project for women in Vietnam" to raise breast cancer awareness and knowledge among women aged 30 – 70 in the five northern provinces, provides women with knowledge and skills o­n regular and proper breast self-examination. After o­ne yearimplementation, the project has achieved encouraging results, most of which go beyond the targets of the year; the project has had good initial impacts o­n women’s awareness in the community and attracted more women to participate.

In 2013, the project organized 100 training sessions for 3,794 women in the five provinces. Those trainees again became the communicators to inform women in the community about breast cancer and breast self-examination for early detection of breast cancer. 5,000 breast cancer and breast self-examination booklets were printed and distributed. 86 women found abnormal tumor o­n their breast after doing breast self-examination and were recommended to clinics for checking; 76 of them were diagnosed with harmless tumor while the other 10 were diagnosed of breast cancer and were sent to K hospital for treatment.

The project has significant impacts o­n enhancing the awareness and consciousness o­n breast cancer prevention for women and people. This is clearly shown in the pre and post survey results conducted in 2013 o­n 250 women in five provinces. From 26.4% of women who had breast self-examinations and 7.7% of women who had monthly breast checking before the project, the number has increased to 100% and 88.4% respectively. When discovering the abnormal tumors, many women contacted the project team members to be recommended to clinics for checking and treatment. Most of the women participating in the project have talked to their relatives and friends about breast self-examination.

At the workshop, the delegates shared information about the integration of project activities with other health care programmes at all levels, experiences in supporting, advising and providing checking and treatment for women at risk or breast cancer patients at the hospital; listened to the project beneficiaries; discussed the problems and difficulties arising during the project implementation in 2013, solutionsand the lessons learned.

In 2014, the project continues to focus o­n communication, such as printing and distribution of the IEC materials; training of key trainers (ToT) for central and provincial levels staff, field training to be conducted by those having received ToT for women in the project sites o­n breast cancer and breast self-examination; monitoring and supporting the implementation in project sites…. The new points of the project activities in 2014 is the project will organize media events, do advocacy to raise awareness of breast cancer prevention for women at the central level and in five project provincesand have Nam Dinh as a new province to benefit from the project.

Mr. Hasumi - General Manager of PHJ HQ and Ms. Jeeranun - Regional Director for Thailand & Vietnam expressed their "happiness" with the results of the project which were all beyond the targets set for 2013. Mr. Hasumi also hoped the project will follow the direction "continuous - deeper - broader" so that more and more women will benefit from the project through gaining more knowledge o­n breast cancer prevention./.