* Va por Ti Foundation aims to raise one hundred thousand pesos or more to support women from the State of Mexico with this condition…
* Asks the new legislators to look at this sector that is dying from not having access to health care…
By Mireya Alvarez
Toluca, Mexico.- With the goal of raising approximately one hundred thousand pesos in 100 days to support women in vulnerable situations, mainly with breast cancer, the Va por Ti Foundation began its fourth sale called “Pink Hands”, which will be on display from October 12th to 19th at the Chamber of Deputies of the State of Mexico. Elizabeth Briones, president of the foundation, indicated that over the eight years they have been a civil association, they have been in charge of training for free approximately 200 women in vulnerable situations, that is, she said, who are in extreme poverty, who have been survivors of violence or survivors of breast cancer, mainly from the municipalities of Temoaya, San Pablo Autopan in Toluca, Temascaltepec, Jocotitlán, among others.
The training they receive is self-employment, to encourage them to earn their own resources with courses ranging from cooking, baking, nail art, jewelry making, among others, so that they can be economically independent and can promote their businesses. In addition to the courses, they are provided with psychological therapy and legal advice.
“The foundation is made up primarily of women, and its objective, apart from encouraging them to start their own business, is to raise funds with this 100-day sale to be able to buy compression sleeves, oncological lingerie, turbans, external prostheses, oncological wigs, gloves, travel expenses, among other accessories that women cancer survivors need and that unfortunately the public health system does not have,” she said.
In addition to this, she commented that the foundation she heads has a patronage of 70 women who are cancer survivors whom it supports, however, the expenses “never stop”, because every year, as in 2024, 20 women will have their oncological lingerie renewed, as well as prostheses, “not to mention that we also contribute to other collections for various causes.”
When asked how much a prosthesis costs, she reported that a standard one costs around five thousand pesos and lasts five years, the lingerie costs around three thousand pesos, plus the compression chamber costs around two thousand pesos, meaning that a survivor of this disease spends approximately ten thousand pesos, plus medical care and family expenses.
“I want to tell you that this is not just a fight against cancer, it is a journey in favor of health. The idea is that there are no more women losing their lives to cancer, that there are no more orphaned children, no more widowed men, no more empty chairs because of breast cancer. Let us remember that at a national level, two to three women die every minute, this being the first cause of death in women in Mexico, followed by cervical cancer,” declared the president of the Va por Ti Foundation.
She also said that they do not receive government, state or federal support, but rather they are an initiative of volunteers who work hard because they do not receive any income and of empathetic entrepreneurs who donate 10 percent of their sales, which range from cookies, homemade sauces, jewelry, natural yogurt, embroidered blouses, “that is to say that this is something that is achieved through civil society.”
Finally, she asked the next deputies to make reforms and laws in favor of women who are in this situation, “so that a voice is given to this sector of the population that urgently needs help, so that the resources of the entity truly help all those women from remote communities who are dying because they do not have access to medical services because today they did not have an early diagnosis, that they give them a voice, that they give them visibility, that they give them opportunities, that they give them financial freedom because it is the only key to independence and to life.”
It is important to remember that according to the latest survey carried out in 2022 by the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI), at the national level the incidence of new cases of breast cancer was 23,790 among the population aged 20 years and older.
The incidence was 27,064 per 100,000 inhabitants aged 20 years and older. It was higher in women, with 51,092 versus 1,025 in men.
In 2022, of the total deaths from malignant tumors in people aged 20 years and older, 87,880 were deaths, of which 7,088 were deaths from breast cancer, representing 9.0 percent. Of these cases, 99.4 percent occurred in women with 7,838 cases, as opposed to 0.6 percent in men with 50 cases.
Meanwhile, in that same year 2022, the State of Mexico had a rate of 13.43 percent in deaths of women aged 20 and over due to breast cancer, that is, for every 100,000 women, only 4.05 percent less than the national average.
