The dining room at Othello Retirement Home in Brackenfell was decked out in pink at a fun party held on Thursday 31 October in support of Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
At the event, 300 wool breast prostheses and 130 bras were handed over to Solidarity Helping Hand Western Cape and the non-profit organisation, I love Boobies, respectively, to assist women who have undergone a mastectomy.
The bras were collected during the resort’s breast cancer month and the prostheses were knitted, stitched and sewn together by the knitting club.
Marlize de Jongh, the project coordinator, said the prosthetic packages were obtained with the help of donations from the Cancer Society of South Africa.
The knitting needles started clicking on Mandela Day on July 18 with a knitting marathon to complete the 300 breast prostheses within two and a half months. The dedicated group of senior women, almost all in their 80s, met every Tuesday afternoon, drank coffee and knitted.
De Jongh says it was a great privilege for them to be able to contribute to such an important
cause.
“We hope that we inspire fellow people to be more aware of breast cancer and the importance of early diagnosis. By working together, we can make a big difference,” she says. The project was launched two years ago by Hellette Wessels, the social worker at the resort, to involve the resort’s residents in meaningful projects. Elana van der Watt, radiologist from SCP Radiology, received the bras on behalf of I Love Boobies, with whom they will distribute the bras in poor farming communities. She says it is wonderful to see how our older generation work together in this way, and have not only made a difference in their own lives, but also in the lives of other women in the community.
“For the seasonal farm worker who only has an income for half a year, and for whom new underwear is not a matter of course, just one bra makes a big difference. It brings dignity,” says Van der Watt.
Distributed nationally:
Lize Theron from Solidarity Western Cape thanked the women for their valuable contribution, and gave each a pink rose.”It’s precious for us to know that so many women worked together to make the prostheses. It will be distributed on a national level to 150 women who have had to undergo the trauma of a mastectomy.
“The ball of wool makes an enormous difference in their lives; to feel like a woman again.” In her speech, author and motivational speaker Ronelle Foster shared her own four-year journey with cancer from her book Cancer saved my life. She was diagnosed with blood cancer at the age of 45 during the Covid pandemic. She had to immediately receive blood transfusions and start chemotherapy. Her sister in Australia was
a 100% compatible bone marrow donor- a one in 100,000 chance of a perfect match.
With the travel restrictions in lockdown, the bone marrow extraction had to be done in Australia and transported to Cape Town in a very limited time -from Sydney via Durban and Johannesburg to Cape Town.
Foster says the bone marrow transplant was her “Mount Everest”. “My body went through hell, but I had to keep my head out of it. It took four months after the, surgery for me to walk on my own again. I could open my eyes in the mornings and just live i
the moment knowing that I had survived cancer. Of the 18 other people who walked the road
with me, only I am left to tell the story.” Foster has been in remission since September this year, but still has to go for a biopsy every
four months. She left her audience with these words: ” Whatever breaks us open, is not as important as what it opens. ”
Article from:
https://www.netwerk24.com/netwerk24/za/tygerburger/nuus/vlytige-vingers-brei-300-prosteses-20241105-2
