PLETTENBERG BAY NEWS - Plettenberg Bay has been identified as a location for undertaking a "secret swim" to raise awareness of cancer and funds for a charity aimed at providing free breast cancer screenings for women who cannot afford them.
I Love Boobies, a non-profit organisation, will be hosting five secret swim events across the country on Saturday 12 October.
"Join us as we honour the fighters, celebrate the survivors, and remember the brave souls who fought against breast cancer," the organisers said.
Limited to 200
Each event, including Plettenberg Bay's, will be limited to 200 women, to create a safe and supportive space for those whose lives have been touched by breast cancer.
It is also a women's-only event, but open to all ages.
Entry is R200 and all funds raised will go directly to the I Love Boobies breast cancer screening programme. "Our aim is to fund screenings for 1 000 women."
Each participant will receive an exact location pin at midnight on Friday 11 October.
Registration will then take place at 07:30 and the swim at 08:00. Participants are encouraged to stay and have a picnic on the beach afterwards.
Other locations include Tableview in the Western Cape, Scottburgh on Kwazulu-Natal's South Coast and Ballito on its North Coast. To purchase a ticket, participants can click here.
'Tremendous health risks'
The I Love Boobies team said about 47 000 women in South Africa should be screened each year, but estimations suggest only 10 000 are.
The organisation's mandate is to educate and provide clinical screenings for South African women who have limited funds and access to medical facilities.
"Breast cancer is a disease with tremendous health risks amongst women.
"One in eight women of almost any group, will experience invasive breast cancer in her lifetime," the team said.
They added that the majority of women who die from breast cancer lived in low- and middle-income countries, where most women were diagnosed in late stages of the disease due to a variety of factors.
These include limited awareness on the part of the public and health-care providers, and the lack of access to timely, affordable and effective diagnosis and treatment.
Each woman who is screened as part of the programme receives a pair of socks, to serve as a reminder to self-examine each time she wears them.
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