Copa Airlines has donated an airline ticket for the Guyana Cancer Foundation (GCF) to send a representative to New York en route to Istanbul, Turkey for the upcoming Fifth Annual Congress on Epigenetics and Chromosome.
It has also donated supplies to assist in the GCF’s next outreach exercise in Berbice. According to a Copa Airlines press release, Sales Manager Nadine Oudkerk noted the company’s commitment to assisting non-governmental organisations and said it was pleased to support the GCF in working to raise cancer awareness in Guyana in order to change high-risk lifestyles and behaviours, as well as to promote prevention and early medical intervention and treatment.
Chief Executive Officer of Scotch Bonnett Ltd., Samantha Gooden, has been nominated by the GCF to be its representative at the Congress in Turkey which runs from November 14th to November 16th.
“We are going to be looking at how marketing innovation has brought it all together…the Guyana Cancer Foundation has been doing tireless work over the last 13 years… the statistics are showing that more and more people are coming in to get treatment or are being exposed to treatment,” the CEO was quoted as saying in the release.
Gooden will make a presentation on Guyana’s approach to advance cancer awareness as a developing nation in South America. She will describe how the GCF utilises important public/private sector partnerships to shift social perceptions and promote early cancer detection and prevention. Gooden was further quoted as saying, “Through research, through having conversations with several doctors, we are looking at how we shift the taboo overall. So, where marketing is the management of perception, we have been doing work to manage the perception of cancer.”
The objective of the congress is to provide a platform for cutting edge research and examine how to shape the future of epigenetics and genome biology in order to create the best outcomes.
The release said the GCF’s President/Founder, Bibi Saeedah Akhtar Hassan, in her remarks, shared some of the details and successes of the work the organisation has been doing in Guyana.
The materials presented to the Foundation by Copa Airlines comprised lancets and gloves that will be used to conduct outreaches for cervical, breast and prostate cancer screenings in Berbice. Oudkerk noted that such screenings are extremely valuable because they are often a primary source of education and information regarding cancer, the release added.
