News

End breast cancer stigmatisation Mrs Sumani

Mrs Ramatu Sumani

A cancer advocate, Mrs Ramatu Sumani has urged women to champion the course to end stigmatisation against breast cancer patients and survivors.
According to her, misconceptions surrounding the disease was a major contributory factor to the reason most survivors and sufferers of the disease continued to live in fear.

Mrs Sumani made the assertion in an interview with The Spectator on Monday.
She said it was important for women to come out in their numbers to speak to issues confronting them if they wanted to make the country and world safer and better for themselves and young girls.
She said women’s active participation in the fight against breast cancer stigma could help raise awareness about the importance of early detection methods such as regular self-examinations and mammograms, stressing that when more women are knowledgeable about the risks and symptoms of breast cancer, lives can be saved through early diagnosis and treatment.

She said cancer among Ghanaian women, especially breast cancer should be of concern to every woman, considering the high number of women who are diagnosed of the disease in Ghana each year, and the fact that many breast cancer patients need to undergo surgery to remove the affected breast or both breast as part of the treatment.
“The stigmatisation usually arises when people start pointing at women who have lost their breasts to cancer, to the extent that newly diagnosed ones do not want to even report to any health facility when they notice abnormalities in their breast.”
“This is not what we want as women. We should rather focus on encouraging each other than gossiping about our sisters without breast. This is bad. Let us rise above such acts and render support to each other. If it happens to your sister today, it can happen to you tomorrow so let us all come together to show love to breast cancer fighters and survivors,” she said.
Touching on the rate of breast cancer among women in Ghana, Mrs Sumani, who is also a breast cancer survivor and organiser for the Cancer Support Network Foundation said the World Health Organisation (WHO) – Cancer Country Profile of Ghana 2020, shows that breast cancer is the number one cancer among women in Ghana with an incidence of 20.4 per cent and a relatively high mortality rate.
That, she said, was not encouraging therefore efforts against all obstacles hindering the progress of the fight against the disease in Ghana should be intensified as a matter of urgency, to save lives.
Stigmatisation, she said, can have severe psychological and emotional effects on breast cancer patients and survivors, “however women’s involvement in challenging stigmatisation can contribute to the creation of a supportive environment that uplifts and encourages those affected by the disease,” Mrs Sumani added.
By Raissa Sambou

News

Swallowed by the Sea! …Keta’s coastal lines, landmarks, efforts to preserve heritage

Fragments of a once inhabited home now lie submerged, swallowed by the encroaching waters along Keta’s coast(1)

The Atlantic Ocean is no longer a distant blue horizon for the people of Keta.

It now circles around their doorsteps, uninvited, unrelenting, pulling down walls and other structures, erasing memories, and threatening lives.

Hovering precariously between the restless sea and the Keta Lagoon, this once-thriving coastal town is slowly being obliterated.

A once standing home now lies in ruins, claimed by the relentless waves along the shore of Keta a stark reminder of the growing threat of coastal erosion.

Salt water has become both a physical and metaphorical threat, dissolving the town’s past as fast as it claims its future.

Madam Aku Atitso, 62, lives in a crumbling former Prisons Service quarters – one of the few structures still standing on the eroded stretch of Queen Street.

The remains of the old Ghana Prisons quarters in Keta, slowly succumbing to the advancing sea, evidence of the unyielding coastal erosion reshaping the shoreline.

She sits quietly at the entrance, preparing a modest breakfast for herself and her granddaughter.

The air is thick with salt and silence. “The sea took everything,” she says softly. “My husband’s nets, our mattress, our memories all gone overnight.” Her voice trembles. “This place too is dying. But it’s the last place with a roof over my head.”

A few metres away, Aunty Esinam, 79, watches the sea from a low stool beside a wooden shelter. Her eyes do not blink. “That spot,” she points, “used to be someone’s living room, a whole family lived there”.

Efo Agbeko stands atop the sea defence wall, pointing toward the vast Atlantic Ocean, marking the spot where buildings once stood before the sea claimed them

It’s not just homes that are vanishing. Landmarks that anchored Keta’s cultural identity are disappearing one after another. The once-imposing Fort Prinzenstein, a haunting relic of the transatlantic slave trade is now more of a ruin than a monument.

Fragments of a once inhabited home now lie submerged, swallowed by
the encroaching waters along Keta’s
coast.

The colonial-era Bremen factory, the old cinema where generations of children once laughed at flickering black-and-white films is also gone.

Queen Street, once the town’s bustling backbone, is now a watery corridor choked with debris.

Standing atop a section of the sea defence wall, 69-year-old retired teacher Efo Kwasi Agbeko surveys what remains.

“The first police station is mostly gone,” he says, gesturing part of the building stuck in the sea sand, only ruins and a few rooms remain.

Children play on a fishing canoe grounded in the sand a moment of joy amidst the quiet rhythms of coastal life.

“This town is fighting, but the sea is winning,” he said.

Even the Cape St. Paul Lighthouse, Keta’s historic sentinel, leans perilously toward the water, and fishermen say holes in the shore are opening more frequently, sometimes every week.

That leaves a thick cloud of uncertainty hanging around the historic town of Keta.

Once upon a time, it was a vibrant town noted for business but currently left with ruins with a few of the residents watching in awe the sea’s devastation.

From: Geoffrey Kwame Buta, Keta, Volta Region

News

Ghanaians climax Easter with fun-filled activities

• Awards given for outstanding performance

Christians around the world and other faith based groups last Monday climaxed the Easter celebration with a number of fun-filled outdoor and indoor activities.

With streets empty, fun seekers stormed church premises where picnics were held while others partied in many ways.

Others spent the day at the various beaches and music and film shows occupying the others.

At the churches, participants engaged in bible reading, football, volleyball, playing cards, table tennis, horse racing, bouncing castles, swimming and oware.