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A Look Back at Pink Ribbon Red Ribbon in 2016

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Learn more about Crystal Cazier.
Crystal Cazier
Former Deputy Director, Global Health
George W. Bush Institute

Pink Ribbon Red Ribbon is closing a momentous year of transition and growth.  The partnership marked its fifth anniversary, began operating as an independent non-profit organization affiliated with the George W. Bush Institute, welcomed new leadership, established an office in Washington, D.C., and expanded its team of talented staff to advance Pink Ribbon Red Ribbon’s mission of fighting women’s cancer in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America.

In 2016, much was accomplished to save the lives of women and girls from breast and cervical cancer in countries where there is a particularly high burden of disease.  With Pink Ribbon Red Ribbon’s partners and supporters, we celebrate:

  • Finalizing plans for an investment of $3.5 million in financing from the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) to support the transition of the Zambian cervical cancer program to the Ministry of Health by 2019;

  • Opening 12 new sites to screen for and treat cervical pre-cancer in Botswana;

  • Adding 14 sites in three new regions in Tanzania, which brings the total number of hospitals and clinics we support in the country to 58 across nine different regions;

  • Completing the first round of vaccinations against the human papillomavirus (HPV) among adolescent girls in Ethiopia;

  • Finishing plans for a program in Mozambique, and securing $1 million in PEPFAR funding for cervical cancer activities there;

  • Signing a partnership agreement with the Peruvian Ministry of Health to assist with the prevention, detection and treatment of cervical cancer beginning in 2017;

  • Conducting an international design competition to develop two “Hostels for Hope” in Tanzania that will provide accommodations for women who are undergoing cancer treatment at Ocean Road Cancer Institute in Dar es Salaam and Bugando Medical Center in Mwanza; and

  • Holding our first Capitol Hill Day, during which 14 representatives from Pink Ribbon Red Ribbon and its partner organizations visited 22 Congressional offices to educate policy-makers about the impact of breast and cervical cancer in low- and middle-income countries.

Since 2011, Pink Ribbon Red Ribbon and its partners have vaccinated 119,192 girls against the human papillomavirus, screened 341,863 women for cervical cancer, treated 24,478 women for cervical cancer, and screened nearly 18,000 women for breast cancer. 

Pink Ribbon Red Ribbon has made impactful progress in 2016, and looks forward to 2017 with enthusiasm.