Bengal News reporter
From refugee camps to the refuge of the West Side: Burmese women are finding themselves welcomingly provided for once they arrive,including new measures aimed at educating them on breast cancer awareness.
Funded by the Susan G. Komen Center, the International Institute of Buffalo organized on Nov.23 a health education tutorial that consisted of breast cancer prevention techniques including how to properly perform self-examinations.
“We were trying to focus on one ethnic group and since the refugees who are coming from Burma or what is now known as Myanmar, are the latest refugee groups coming into the area, we felt we would start with them,” said May Shogan, project director for the Komen program and director of international exchanges at the International Institute of Buffalo.
“There are a lot of things that they don’t know when it comes to their health,” she said.
May Shogan talks about directing health information to Burmese women:
For Burmese women coming from a country where such a topic as breast cancer is often stigmatized and educational and preventive measures severely limited, the informational session came with a sigh of relief for many.
“When we gave them the survey to see how much they knew about the topic, in the beginning they all answered I don’t know,” said Shogan. “When we did the post survey, we got accurate answers for most of the questions.”
According to data gathered from the Komen foundation, test scores for the Burmese population were among the lowest scores of all the immigrant and refugee populations educated about breast cancer.
Once the International Institute of Buffalo realized how poorly the women scored on the breast cancer survey, they applied for the Susan G. Komen grant and were soon awarded $21,416 to develop a health fair.
During the health fair the women were shown how to examine their breast for lumps by using their hands and fingers and preventive measures to take to avoid breast cancer.
“We thought that it was important to have the health fair to help these women settle well into our community,” said Kim Griswold, assistant professor of family medicine and psychiatry and founder of the Refugee Cultural Competency Training Program at Niagara Family Health Center.
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| Karpeles Manuscript Library Museum |
There were health fairs done in the past for other groups, such as Somali and Asian women, but the primary reason to have just one ethnic group was because of language, said Griswold.
“If we had a mixed group it would entail us using too many interpreters because of the different dialects,” he said. “So it’s best to have one group so we would only have to use two interpreters.”
Although Burmese is the main language spoken in Burma, there are many ethnicities and languages such as Shan, Karen, Kachin and Chin.
“This event was a huge success,” said Luniya Msuku, representative from the HEAL-International Inc. “We addressed a variety issues that deal with women in terms of their physical and emotional well-being, but also their economical well-being.”
Edited by John Patrissi
Some of the Burmese women who come in as refugees, had to deal with militarily oppressive governments. The political, economical and overall state of living for these women makes them susceptible to a number of critical health problems, such as lack of access to family planning services and HIV/AIDS. Many Burmese women are forced into prostitution in order to provide for the well being of their family, which puts them at an even greater risk of incurring AIDS and other incurable diseases. -- Saintia Dorestal
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