In a bid to support Breast Cancer Awareness Month Jacaranda FM’s Good Morning Angels Fund has bought an artwork for R25 000. This will be enough to fund 26 mammograms for women in need.
Nonhlanhla Sephula is a single mother of three sons and they are her pride and joy. Her sons were also her rock through the toughest journey of her life when she had breast cancer.
Sephula was diagnosed with breast cancer on June 5, 2021. She discovered a lump while sitting at a restaurant with her children celebrating one of her son’s birthdays.
She made an appointment with her GP, who referred her for a mammogram and sonar test. She did not have a medical aid and was shocked at the expense of a mammogram and all the tests that go with it. She also realised how little she knew about breast cancer and the hard treatment road she was going to have to walk.
Her will to live for her sons did not change and the four of them took this battle head-on with the help of amazing doctors, surgery and radiation. She was declared cancer-free in August this year.
While on her cancer journey, she realised how many women in disadvantaged communities did not have access to proper breast cancer treatment and information.
Foundation to help other women
help She then founded the Risima Foundation, a nonprofit organisation aimed at helping women who cannot afford mammograms.
The Risima Foundation held a fundraiser and mobile mammogram screening day at Irene Link, on Saturday October 28. The aim was to raise enough funds to host a mobile screening day once a month, to benefit women who cannot afford to pay the R950 per screening.
The fundraising was done through pieces of art, drawn by her youngest son, 16-year-old Mxolisi, who drew their family’s breast cancer journey.
