Hajiya Maryam Abubakar is the Chairperson, Women Foundation of Nigeria/Proprietor, Womanhood School of Health Sciences, Kaduna. Her passion for women related issues and concern to bringing health care services closer to the doorsteps of many according to her is the reason why she founded the Womanhood Foundation. This and others she opens up on in an interview with Zainab Tanimu our Kaduna Correspondent. Excerpts:

Why did you set up this foundation?

You know women and children are the most vulnerable in the society. In whatever sense, when you touch women, you are touching the whole generation. They are always at the receiving end so to say. Our objective is that of assisting women and children. This was what motivated us into setting up Womanhood Foundation. We want to help people erase the fear about the disease cancer. Cancer is deadly, there is no doubt about it but it can be prevented. If someone has cancer, the person begins to see it as the end of life. No! We say that is the beginning of your life because we can prevent as well as treat it. So, we are telling everybody that having the disease cancer is not the end of one’s life. It does not mean that you are dying. All you need to do is, rise up and fight against it by seeking for treatment.

For how long has the foundation been in existence?

We started in 2008 by assisting the orphans, widows and divorcees. Paying their school fees, hospital bills, training them on skills acquisition. We also trained some as birth attendants. With time, it metamorphosed into school of Health Sciences. That was how it started. The good thing is that we are accredited by more than one board which includes Health Management Board of Nigeria and we are waiting for more accreditations to come soonest.

How many types of cancer do we have?

We have a lot of them. Pre-dominant ones includes, breast cancer, and cervical cancer.

How does one know if she has breast cancer?

The simplest way an individual can know is through self breast examination. What a woman should do each and everyday of her life when she wakes up is to spear some time to examine her breast. Standing before a mirror would help. When you are undressed, you either raise your hands up or backward and carry out a kind of massage trying to locate if there is any lump. If it is the right breast, you use the left hand to massage and vice-versa. It is very important for every woman to note the size and shape of her breasts. When you know it, you start checking day by day for any sign of change. When you start noticing any change either in size, in shape, nipple of the breast becoming abnormal or you find a lump, you know definitely something is wrong with your breast.  The next thing is to quickly report to a doctor for further investigation or treatment as the case may be.

How true is the belief that early exposure to sex and having of multiple sex partners can lead to cervical cancer?

A lady who is exposed to early sex life is prone to having cervical cancer because she is not fully matured. You see, the size of the manhood matters. When you stick to one partner, it reduces the prevalence of you having cervical cancer. But when you go to Mr. ‘A’ today, tomorrow you are with Mr. ‘B’, jumping from one man to the other. Mark you, the size of their manhood differs. So, there is bound to be a problem. When a woman is matured and she is exposed to sex, she is prone to the disease but when all her hips and her reproductive system are fully matured it reduces the risk. The best practice is a woman maintaining one sex partner. We are trying to educate people so that they would know the implications and stop such acts. When you stick to one sex partner, it would help in reducing the prevalence of cervical cancer.

The 2017 World Cancer Day was marked recently. What role did your foundation play in taking the campaign to the people especially those at the grass root level?

We tried to enlighten and sensitize people on the danger of cancer generally. We had an endurance trek. We took our campaign to surrounding communities sensitizing them on the dangers of cancer and how to prevent it. Moving from one community to the other using red and blue inscriptions. The red signifying the danger of cancer while the blue stood for the treatment. We want to call on each and every woman not only women to rise up and fight the disease headlong because it does affect men too. We have men too with cancer.

The theme of this year says, ‘You Can’, I can, we all can. That is, you can prevent cancer, l can prevent cancer and we all can prevent it. What we are saying is an individual can prevent cancer by sensitizing and enlightening somebody on cancer. That is what we are doing in Womanhood Foundation. We are enlightening everybody.

What advice do you have for parents?

Parents should always advise their children. Seat them down and engage them in some family talks. Let them know that cervical cancer is deadly and should not play with their lives.

What is your projection?

My projection and dream is to see this Foundation in the nearest future being one of the Foundations that truly cares about women  related cases and would be of  benefit to not only women residing in Kaduna but the nation at large.