Women's Empowerment Cancer Advocacy Network (WE CAN)
The Women's Empowerment Cancer Advocacy Network (WE CAN) conducts breast and cervical cancer advocacy, education and outreach conferences in low and middle resource countries. The goal is to connect, train and support leaders of women's cancer NGOs regionally. In addition, health care providers and policy makers supportive of patient advocate empowerment are included.
The Eastern Europe/Central Asia project began in 2003. A total of 13 countries in the region have attended the WE CAN conferences which are held biennially in rotating countries. Conferences to date have been held in Lithuania (2003, 2011), Ukraine (2005), Belarus (2007), Kyrgyzstan (2009) and Georgia (2013). These will be continued biennially.
As a result of relationships created through the Fred Hutchinson program at the Uganda Cancer Institute, the 1st African WE CAN conference was held in Kampala, Uganda in 2013. This will be held annually, in rotating countries. The conferences are conducted with the women's cancer NGOs in the region. Susan G. Komen for the Cure has been a lead financial supporter, and LIVESTRONG has partnered in advocacy and stigma training. Local/regional/national cancer centers and health ministries are partners. The intended outcome is to train and support patient advocates to impact cancer awareness and early detection, and improve access to treatment and survivorship/palliative care in their respective countries.