More News

The organization aims to raise awareness, refer women to doctors and specialists, and provide help to the many African women in the United States and Africa who have cancer.

In three years, the organization of about 34 members has already helped thousands of women in the Washington, D.C., area, according to Nwabukwu. The association has participated in walks and other events to raise research money, and helped another organization donate a mammogram machine to Sierra Leone.

‘‘While we teach and preach awareness, there has to be means,” Nwabukwu said.

Now, the AWCAA has just received a $75,000 scholarship from Susan G. Komen for the Cure, a nonprofit organization based in Dallas that is committed to raising money, awareness and changing public policy to find a cure for cancer.

‘‘Their funding to my organization gives a breath of fresh air,” Nwabukwu said. ‘‘...[Komen] gave us the strength to be able to stand strong.”

She said since the extra funding was awarded in January, the AWCAA has been able to reach out to about 700 women.

Nwabukwu became aware of cancer plaguing African women after her mother came to visit from Nigeria in 1989, suspecting she had breast cancer. Her mother, who had a lump, believed it was a result of her not breastfeeding her youngest child. When the doctors told her it was more serious, Nwabukwu said it became more serious for her, too.

‘‘I had no clue,” she said about the possibility that she too could be at risk for breast cancer. ‘‘I never did a breast exam.”

Nwabukwu said African women needed to be more educated and more aware of the risks, but she didn’t really take action until her good friend and mother’s doctor, Dr. Chinwe Otue-Agugua, was also diagnosed with breast cancer four years ago. ‘‘I said, ‘Enough is enough,’” she said.

Nwabukwu said she realized that many African women, including herself, did not talk about their own battles with disease. She said she even waited about five years to tell many of her friends and colleagues that her mother had breast cancer.

‘‘Culturally, we don’t talk about a lot of stuff,” Otue-Agugua said. ‘‘It’s like even if you have surgery, people don’t talk about it. They feel like you have to hide everything.”

Nwabukwu said having people like Otue-Agugua in the organization also helps other African women learn that it is OK to be open about their disease.

‘‘I need to be involved and I need to tell my story as many times as I can tell it, so people can be aware of cancer and know even if they don’t know anything about it ... everyone is at risk,” Otue-Agugua said.

Otue-Agugua said she had no family history of breast cancer, and while she continues to fight the illness today after being in remission for about a year and a half, she said she is dedicated to continue helping others as well.

Milly Terry, who co-founded another breast cancer association called the Pink Charity Fund, is also the communications director of AWCAA. The Pink Charity Fund is based in Sierra Leone.

Terry said she continues to work with both organizations to ensure African-born American women know what is there to help them, but she also spends a lot of time in Africa.

Last year, AWCAA brought a team of physicians, nurses and trained health ambassadors to Nigeria to perform cancer screenings, pap smears and bring medication to women. This year, Terry said AWCAA would be going back to Nigeria and to Liberia.

‘‘Africa needs so much because the women don’t even know what’s going on with them,” Terry said. ‘‘When we went last year, we saw this woman who was going about her daily chores and she was suffering. She just thought it was a boil in her breast.”

Besides continuing to work with Africans and African-born immigrants in the United States, Nwabukwu said the organization will go into private homes to lead women in an open and candid discussion about their health and show them how to perform a self-breast exam.

Nwabukwu said the organization also has reached out to men and women of all cultural backgrounds by offering free prostate exams, colon exams, mammograms and pap smears.

‘‘There are so many women [who are] aware, but we want to keep ... emphasizing not to think [cancer] is a stigma. Talk about it and seek early treatment,” she said. ‘‘Don’t wait.”

‘Africa AgainstCancer’

The African Women’s Cancer Awareness Association will hold the third annual ‘‘Africa Against Cancer” 5K walk-a-thon 9 a.m. June 30 at Wheaton Regional Park, 2000 Shorefield Road, Wheaton. Registration is $20 in advance and $25 on the day of the walk, beginning 8 a.m. For more information on the walk and other AWCAA events, call 301-565-0420, 301-572-7004 or visit www.acwaa.org.