Avon Funds Breast Cancer Awareness Program for Orthodox Jewish Women

NEW YORK--The Avon Breast Health Access Fund has awarded a grantof $23,961 to Cancer Care for a program to increase awarenessof the life-saving benefits of early breast cancer detection amonglow-income Orthodox Jewish women in New York City. Cancer Careis a nonprofit organization that provides free professional servicesto people with cancer and their families,

The program will serve large enclaves of Orthodox Jewish womenwho, because of language, cultural beliefs, and socioeconomicreasons, receive inadequate health care. These women are not exposedto popular media that have long promoted breast health education.Moreover, because of modesty, the word breast is rarely used inthese communities.

The program will provide free educational seminars on the benefitsof early detection in the Orthodox Jewish communities, locatedprimarily in areas of Brooklyn. The seminars will be given inEnglish, Yiddish, Hebrew, and Russian, and, afterwards, the womenwill be given the opportunity to have a no- or low-cost mammogramand clinical exam.