Breast Cancer Awareness Street Meetings Held at Three Spots in Barisal, With Pink Procession and Leaflets

Street meetings were held at three locations in Barisal to raise public awareness about breast cancer. The meetings took place at three spots in the city after Friday evening.

The meetings were held at the Town Hall square, the field beside the Ansar office, and the Trish Godown area on the bank of the Kirtankhola river. Organisers and participants gathered at the three locations one after another as the evening progressed.

At the meetings, messages about breast cancer awareness were delivered to pedestrians and local residents through loudspeaker announcements. Leaflets were also distributed among the public.

A banner titled 'Pink Road Procession' was displayed during the programme. Using the colour pink as its theme, the event sought to draw the attention of ordinary people to the issue of breast cancer awareness.

The programme was organised by the Bangladesh Breast Cancer Awareness Forum. The forum chose three busy locations in Barisal city for the street meetings.

The programme was led by cancer epidemiology and prevention specialist Professor Dr Habibullah Talukder Raskin, the forum's chief coordinator. The street meetings were conducted under his leadership.

Also present was the forum's coordinator, Iqbal Mahmud, who joined the organising team at the meetings in all three spots.

Humayun Kabir, founding president of the Bangladesh World Cancer Society, was also in attendance. The presence of the founding president of an organisation working on cancer awareness added weight to the programme.

Jebunnessa Begum, founder of the non-profit social organisation Heel, and Md Mohsin, a representative of the NGO Proshika, were among others present at the programme.

The awareness campaign ran through the evening in three forms — loudspeaker announcements, banner displays and leaflet distribution. The same message was carried to three different kinds of public gathering places: a riverbank, the Town Hall square and a field.

Through this street-meeting programme, the organising forum has given fresh momentum to breast cancer awareness campaigning in Barisal. Those involved believe open programmes of this kind play an effective role in carrying health awareness messages to the general public.