From Social Change School’s classrooms to the Presidency of AFRON – Titti Andriani’s last mission in Rwanda to save women from cancer
Titti Andriani is the typical representative of Social Change School’s Alumni. After the International Master FRAME – in FundRaising Management in the NGOs Business Administration, Marketing, Communication, Social Media, Campaigns – she pursued with strength and courage a professional career that can be called intense at the least. Her passion for Africa and her medical and management skills gave her the possibility to found “AFRON – Oncology for Africa Onlus” of which she is President and that brought her to Rwanda, to change the local approach to one of the worst scourges of our time: cancer.
Let’s read her words on her last great and brave challenge:
“The Rwandan Government that took office right after the genocide is promoting a strong policy of reconciliation that aims to the reconstruction of the country. We no longer have Hutu and Tutsi, but only Rwandan citizens, people speak English and Internet is spreading in the country. Yet the memory of the genocide is still very strong in the population and we’ve especially read it in the eyes of the women we met and in the stories they told us.
These women have lived 100 days in hell, while watching their husbands and sons being massacred, have been subjected to violence and torture, have contracted HIV and have given birth to seropositive kids, and have been trying to turn their lives around for 20 years, dreaming of peace and serenity. But a new threat is now on their horizons: breast and cervical cancer is affecting more and more women and surviving the illness is a miracle only few women are destined to experience.
During a two-days oncological training, together with the local partner BCIEA (Breast Cancer Initiative East Africa), AFRON has trained these few cancer survivors to become “Village Ambassadors”, responsible for cancer awareness in their village. It’s a project that is aiming to reach every corner of the country, particularly the marginalized ones, so that each woman will be aware of this new illness and will know how to fight it.
Mayimuna, Victoire, Oda, Charlotte are just some of the very brave women that AFRON is supporting in Rwanda. These women understood how incredibly strong they are and showed it by starting to help other women. Solidarity is for them the door to enter a new life. And they want to accept it with confidence and a smile.”
By Titti Andriani
Read more about her project in Rwanda
Read more stories by Titti Andriani for the Social Change School:
Pictures by Titti Andriani
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