With a view to raising the funds urgently required to build a comprehensive cancer therapy centre, St. Cyril's Cancer Centre, a nongovernmental organisation, NGO has launched an initiative set to involve one million donors.
The initiative is tagged: One Million Individuals Fight Against Cancer, OMIFAC Initiative,
According to the promoters at the recent launch in Lagos, the initiative is billed to raise N12 billion from the public over the course of one year, towards the building of a comprehensive cancer treatment supercentre. It is expected that one million individuals will every month contribute one thousand naira each.
Founder, St. Cyril's Cancer Foundation, Mojisola Animasaun believes that with OMIFAC, her dream of providing affordable, effective and comprehensive treatment to cancer patients can be realised, which originally led to the birth of the foundation five years ago.
A woman of firsts
She said: "I am the first retired radiologist to found an NGO. We are the first NGO to have a cancer centre. In other countries, it's a common thing but in Nigeria, it's a big deal. We are the first to build a comprehensive supercentre and that's the third first. We have reached out to investors; we've tried to talk to people. It's been a long road so we looked inwards to see what we have in Nigeria. We have the population. What don't we have? We don't have a population with a lot of money.
So we want to ask our population to donate little bits of money so that at the end of the day, the cancer centre belongs to everybody."
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Animasaun asserted that a sense of community is very important to the Foundation as this would enable all to have access to screening, testing and treatment.
"Every opportunity I have, I ask people to donate because to be honest, we have a continuous need."
The First Lady of Lagos State, Dr Ibijoke Sanwoolu who launched the initiative, also urged everyone to donate, saying without such initiatives, it is difficult to hold one another accountable.
Chairman, Lagos State Primary Healthcare Board, Professor Akin Osinbogun also commended Animasaun for her strides, saying they ought to inspire others to take a cue from what she is doing and do the little they can to make life better. While congratulating the team, he emphasised on Public-Private Partnerships as the way forward in making services available to Nigerians.
St. Cyril's Cancer Treatment Foundation had hitherto established a centre in the Lagos metropolis, in collaboration with other stakeholders.
