Around 20 people donned their pink outfits on November 17 for the annual Zonta Club of Thames Valley Pink Walk from The Wharf to Kuranui Bay.
President Rosaleen Ward told The Profile the event was about encouraging the community to participate, raise breast cancer awareness and raise funds for the Breast Cancer Foundation.
“Zonta is an international organisation and we seek to raise awareness of women’s issues and girls’ issues and increase opportunities for women and girls,” she said.
“Many of the women in this community have friends and family who have been affected overtime by breast cancer and now due to the much more modern treatments we have a better survival rate.
“We think it is a really great cause for women to support and [the foundation] have a lot of great programmes, they do great research, and they also do a lot of advocacy work with the health department and the different parts of central government.”
Rosaleen said this year’s pink walk raised $280 for the Breast Cancer Foundation. “They are very grateful for any funds we can raise, our funds go towards their programmes and their research and one of the things that happened recently is there’s a new bill in Parliament,” she said.
“[Dr] Shane Reti has advocated for raising the age of screening for women up to 74 years old and we think that’s really great.”
National Party health spokesperson Dr Reti said the private member’s Bill to legislate an increase in the breast cancer screening age from 69 to 74 was added to the ballot box in October.
Around 20 people took part in last year's Pink Walk. File Photo
