Breast Cancer Awareness Campaign

My company supports the Elle Breast  Cancer Awareness Campaign. It runs through the month of October every year. We choose one particular Friday and that is celebrated as, 'Wear Pink to work' day. Different units organise programmes to take the initiative further and create awareness of breast cancer among men and women within the company as well as our social circles. This year October 18th was celebrated as the 'Wear pink to work' day in support of the campaign. The preparations were on since the previous week.

Me being the coordinator for learning and development, the hotel PR officer Charmaine contacted me, she wanted to discuss the campaign and plan some activities for the day. We didn't want it to be a day where all team members are seen in pink and then get over with it. We had 3 days in hand, we decided to involve every team member in the activity and  get them thinking about breast cancer, learn something about it and also spread the awareness among their circles as awareness, screening and early detection is the key to the cure.

 The question was how to get the team members involved especially men who are more than 60% of the workforce. We decided to ask every department to submit at least one poster on breast cancer awareness, yes we did allow multiple entries as well. To make the posters they had to do some research, which they promptly did and started working on the assignment. The deadline for submission of the posters was 10 am on 18th October 2013. We also worked on a couple of other activities for the day and informed all the departments and users through emails.

We decided to carry out the following activities:

• All the front of the house employees to wear pink ribbons (pinned to their uniforms). 
• For those who do not have uniforms, some form of pink to be present in their attire or a pink ribbon could also be worn. 
• Cafeteria to be decorated with Pink and White Balloons. 
• Each department to prepare atleast one poster based on Breast Cancer Awareness . The best poster to be awarded a prize.
• A graffiti wall or a pledge wall for employees to sign and share their messages would be placed at the cafeteria. 
• A lecture /presentation on Breast Cancer Awareness would be conducted for the female employees. This would be done in two sessions , so that all female employees can attend the same. 
• Bowls of pink ribbons would be placed at common public areas for the hotel guests to participate in the activity. 
• Our website would have pink colour for the day and also all social media would be sporting pink as the background colour. 
• A group photograph would be taken at 4pm.

I went around in the hotel and the hotel school to see how the team members were gearing up for the campaign. Found people involved in making the posters, could see a good amount of research and reading had gone into it and our very purpose for the activity was served. There was a good display of teamwork and I simply loved the enthusiasm shown my everyone. Each department wanted to put up something better than the other but all in good spirit!

We were wondering whether  to call a genealogist, but then the year before we had called one and the session was open to all team members, so the ladies had not really asked any questions, though it was a very good session it sounded very clinical. Anyway if we felt the need to consult a genealogist we would certainly invite one. I thought let me do the reading up and conduct this session myself with the lady team members and girl students as they connected better with me. Yes, I supplemented my knowledge on the subjected with a lot of reading up and research. Anyway it was an awareness session so the talk had to be on the various aspects of breast cancer and all that the ladies needed to know, including  the self examination. 

The content was ready, also looked up for songs in support of the cause. Found three really good ones on youtube thought of using them to add value to my lecture. As decided the first session started at 11 am . there were a good number of ladies in attendance. We all had a chat as an ice breaker, then shared with them all that I had found out on the subjected. The session ended up being quite interactive women shared their own experiences and we all pledged that we'd share the information with our friends, near and dear ones.By the end of it, I could see that the ladies had tears in their eyes. We all somewhere felt the connect and the song, 'I'm gonna love you through it' by Martina McBride got all of us very emotional. The same effect was there when I conducted the second session. We covered almost all lady team members and girls of the institute. I was happy with the feedback and felt that it was good idea to do the session myself.

In the admin areas of the hotel, the corridors had turned into art gallery for the day. The enthusiasm was great and the work, say posters put up by the team members were very thoughtful, indeed a work of art!

Link to the posters,  you can like the posters and allow us to judge the best one!

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10152015284903413.1073741828.112698153412&type=1

Yes, 'Wear pink to work' actually got us, Thinking Pink!