Students Raise Cancer Awareness Through Extracurricular Club

By: Norhan Ibrahim El Araby

A group of AUC students raise awareness on all kinds of cancer through an extracurricular club by carrying out on-campus and online campaigns to make donations to research institutions.

“I would like to see us changing some people’s lives,” said Aya Elserw, who joined the club after losing her grandmother to breast cancer then became its President.

ACT has raised breast cancer, lung cancer, leukaemia, ovarian cancer and cervical cancer awareness. Currently, they are focusing on pancreatic and liver cancer.

The club has collected donations for the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the Yassin Abd El- Ghaffar Charity Center of Liver Diseases and Research, which provides the poor with free HCV diagnosis treatment. They sell pins and notebooks in order to collect donations.

“We want to make AUCians and non-AUCians understand that cancer is preventable if a certain lifestyle [is followed],” said Elserw.

The team raises awareness through a variety of awareness methods.

Last Spring, the team created an art gallery in memory of a member they lost to cancer named Aya Alaa. Throughout the gallery, they sold photographs Alaa took and donated the gallery’s funds to the NCI.

ACT also raises awareness on the diseases’ psychological setbacks, and supports patients and their families.

“I believe that the psychological therapy for a cancer patient is more important than the physical therapy. The patient has to know that there are people supporting [them] through [their] journey to recovery,” said Marwa Wakid, ACT member.

Lina Abdelall, ACT public relations head, explained that a lot of people thought that only pink ribbons, which represent breast cancer, existed. However, each type of cancer is represented through a certain colour of ribbon.

“Pancreatic is purple, Liver is Green, and leukaemia is Orange. A lot of Students in AUC and professors too did not know about that,” said Abdelall, adding, “The main goal of the campaigns was to inform people [of] the main causes and how to avoid these types of cancer.”

Earlier this semester, ACT held a session on how to deal with cancer patients since they are planning to conduct visits to hospitals, Abdelall explained.

ACT was founded years ago but was deactivated in 2011. However, after Mennah Salamah, ex-president, and Dina Reda, ex-vice president, wanted to initiate a club that helps cancer patients, they reactivated it through working on improving its structure and projects.

The club has around 30 members and seven high board members, all of which are AUC students.

Wakid said that she hopes that the club can gain more on-campus popularity, since this would help them achieve their mission of raising awareness with regards to all kinds of cancer.