MUMBAI:
On Women’s Day, SBI Life’s ‘Thanks-A-Dot’- breast cancer awareness initiative, continues its journey towards empowering women of India by educating them about early lump detection through simple self-examination techniques.
Supported by the Women’s Cancer Initiative -Tata Memorial Hospital, ‘Thanks-A-Dot’ aims at encouraging every woman to make breast health a priority by inculcating a habit of self-breast examination to understand the early signs of lump formation. An easy-to-use self-training kit can be availed free of cost through SBI Life’s corporate website.
To highlight the importance of self-preparedness, SBI Life released a new social experiment digital video, featuring popular women influencers like Srishti Dixit, Eisha Chopra, Kriti Vij and Srishti Srivastava. The experiment takes us through mixed reactions of women trying to recognize objects using the power of touch. While these women are able to guess most of the objects, they are seen to be caught off guard when they touch lump like shapes on the ‘Thanks- A-Dot’ kit. Upon navigating through the ‘Thanks-A-Dot’ self-training kit, all of them make an appeal to the women at large to make personal health a priority and adopt a behavior of self- breast examination as means to stay prepared.
Ravindra Sharma, Chief of Brand and Corporate Communication, SBI Life Insurance, said, “Early detection of the lumps remains the cornerstone of breast cancer control. The disturbing factor is that a low percentage of women ever go for any kind of examination of breast. This is largely because of lack of awareness, myths around breast cancer and deprioritizing personal health due to hectic lifestyles. As a responsible life insurer, we believe that we have an important role to play in educating and empowering women by increasing awareness about breast cancer and its financial implications. With the ‘Thanks-A-Dot’ initiative, SBI Life is continuously working towards promoting discussions around breast health and we hope to make this topic an acceptable one in the Indian society.”
The company launched the ‘Thanks-A-Dot’ initiative, on Women’s Day last year, to spur positive conversations around breast health and the importance of self- breast examination among women in both urban and rural areas of India. Further, to spread awareness, the company also organized educative workshops in rural India to break through the socio-cultural barriers associated with breast cancer.
According to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), India is likely to have more than 17.3 lakh new cases of breast cancer and over 8.8 lakh deaths due to the disease by 2020. The major reason behind this is lack of awareness and myths around the disease among women. Since its launch, Thanks-A-Dot has reached an audience of 26 million on digital medium, attracted 74,000 website visitors, garnered over 5 million video views and received 6000 plus orders for easy-to-use self-training kits.
