Airtel Rwanda donates smartphones to the ‘One Smartphone per Village

Airtel Rwanda, once again reached out to the Breast Cancer Initiative East Africa Inc. to offer support as they launched an initiative that will see BCIEA Inc. raise more awareness about Breast Cancer in Rwanda.

At a dinner held at Hotel Lemigo, BCIEA Inc., launched the ‘One Smartphone per Village’ campaign that is aimed at giving BCIEA Inc. ambassadors smartphones to help raise breast cancer awareness by reaching out to people in villages.

At the event, Airtel Rwanda donated fifteen smartphones to the cause. BCIEA Inc. is conducting a smartphone-raising drive to get new and already used smartphones from people and companies and use these smartphones to ease communication about Breast Cancer.

In 2012, there were 1.7 million new breast cancer cases diagnosed worldwide -World Cancer Research fund International. In Africa, survival after diagnosis is harder than in the developed world.

According to a research carried out by the American Cancer Society in 2011, survival rate is as low as 50% in some African countries with most breast cancer patients having limited access to timely standard treatment, further diminishing their survival chance.

Speaking at the dinner, Airtel Rwanda Head of CSR & Corporate Communications, Denise Umunyana, applauded the efforts of Ms. Philippa Kibugu-Decuir and BCIEA Inc.

She said; “With our collective efforts, we believe we can increase awareness about Breast Cancer in the country. It is through such innovations like the one smartphone per village that we shall be able to reach out to as many people as possible.”

The Director of the Breast Cancer Initiative East Africa, Ms. Philippa Kibugu-Decuir said; “We can only be able to achieve more if we use what we have to get where we want to be. We can be able to fight Breast Cancer through the one smartphone per village campaign. With your support and proper funding, we can achieve a lot.”

BCIEA Inc. plans to start with 250 of Rwanda’s 14,847 total villages. And later expand with increase in funding and support.

UM– USEKE.RW