The Communication for Development and Advocacy Consult has rolled out the Eastern Region Must Rise Against Cervical Cancer campaign to scale up preventive measures through vaccination, detection, and treatment of cervical cancer towards elimination by 2030.

The CDA Consult, which is a development communication advocacy non-governmental organization working in collaboration with the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) and the National Insurance Commission (NIC), rolled out the project at a media engagement in Koforidua, Eastern Regional Capital, as a prelude to its regional launch in May this year.

Mr. Francis Ameyibor, Executive Director, CDA Consult, explained during the media engagement that the Eastern Region Must Rise Against Cervical Cancer, emanating from the nationwide project “CDA Consult Free Cervical Cancer Change Paradigm Advocacy.” Under the broad banner, “Ghana Must Rise Against Cervical Cancer,”

He said CDA Consult is mobilizing stakeholders for relentless advocacy across the 16 regional capitals and about 120 districts in the next five years to ensure that “the public knows the intervention channels available to them to seek medical attention and, where possible, go for treatment.”

“We will therefore, in collaboration with other stakeholders, seek policy change and undertake capacity-strengthening initiatives that will focus on training and elevating the capacity of community health and outreach workers to deliver integrated services,” Mr. Ameyibor stated.

Mr. Ameyibor stressed that CDA Consult is working with relevant state and non-state actors to ensure that screening and treatment programmes are accessible and appropriate to adolescents and young people since they have distinct health-care, sexual and reproductive health and rights, and educational, developmental, and psychosocial needs.

“Our vision is to scale up the advocacy for cervical cancer vaccination to be administered free and to hold public education across the 16 regions and 120 districts of Ghana to educate the public, particularly women, health professionals, and students, on the importance of vaccination,” he said.

He said the Free Cervical Cancer Screening, Prevention, Detection, and Treatment Change Paradigm Advocacy also seeks to invoke the attitudinal crusade of encouraging and challenging people to know their status and eliminate the myth surrounding screening.

It also seeks to galvanize a national effort to close gaps in the vaccination, prevention, detection, and treatment flow, with scale-up focused on community capacity-building, including through targeted testing strategies, and ensuring that people are offered support upon diagnosis, that treatment is available upon diagnosis, and that people on treatment are supported and monitored regularly.

Ms. Ophelia Nana Yaa Ankrah, NCCE Eastern Regional Director, speaking at the media engagement, stressed that the commission joined the CDA Consult’s advocacy campaign as it fell within its mandated functions.

She reiterated that the NCCE functions, among other things, to formulate, for the consideration of the government, from time to time, programmes at the national, regional, and district levels aimed at realizing the objectives of the 1992 Constitution and that “seeking for the well-being of Ghanaians is enshrined in the Constitution.”

Ms. Ankrah noted that the commission also formulates, implements, and oversees programmes intended to inculcate in the citizens of Ghana awareness of their civic responsibilities and an appreciation of their rights and obligations as free people.

“To assess, for the information of the government, the limitations to the achievement of true democracy arising from the existing inequalities between different strata of the population and make recommendations for redressing these inequalities.

“We must all support the CDA Consult initiative towards the elimination of cervical cancer in the country by 2030 as per the Sustainable Development Goals,” the NCCE Eastern Regional Director stated.

The CDA Consult, in collaboration with other stakeholders, will roll out the “CDA Consult Free Cervical Cancer Change Paradigm Advocacy.” Under the broad banner, “Ghana Must Rise Against Cervical Cancer,” across other regions.