The Islamic Cultural Centre of Ireland had the pleasure of hosting two days of cancer awareness talks for men and women by the Marie Keating Foundation on Wednesday September 3rd and Friday September 17th. This foundation was set up by the Keating family following on from their mothers death from breast cancer in 1998. The Foundation's mission is to make cancer less frightening by educating people to be body aware, health aware and know what warning signs to look out for. Their aim is to live in a world free from the fear of cancer. The speaker for the two days was Miss Bernadette Carter MSc, who has over 25 years of nursing experience in Ireland, UK, Canada and Australia. She gave a very engaging and informative talk about the most common cancers affecting men and women, taking time to answer attendees questions and concerns.
An important take home message from the talks was to be aware of your own body and if something is not feeling right or there are symptoms that are there and not going away, not to wait and ignore, but to go and get them checked out. It does not mean that it is cancer, but it is always important to get checked as early detection is vital to treatment.
The Marie Keating website has a lot of information. This is the link to some of their Cancer Resources.
At the end of the presentation our CEO Mr Ahmed Hasain presented Bernadette with a small gift of appreciation for her time. We look forward to having her come back again to continue on enlightening the community and helping to take the fear out of cancer. Knowledge is power and without the correct knowledge people cannot make informed decisions.
Thank you also to Mr Philip Phelan and his wife Zhyan from the Kurdish Irish Society who brought the idea of this event for the community.
