Cancer Impact Support Services
Our Story
These are our stories. We have come from afar. We have gone through a lot. One thing is clear. We want to live. So we are sharing things that will be able to encourage you on your journey with cancer. While we have gone through a lot, we are still able to move forward with our lives. Enjoy the following stories and learn from our experiences.
Living through Cancer – by Chizara Philips
I was diagnosed with grade 3 breast cancer in 2015. I experienced a lot of emotions both physical and mentally tough time such as anger, fear and feeling I had lost my identity during and after the treatment. I understand how important to support people who are going through the same experience. I also noticed the impact cancer treatment like chemotherapy did on my physical and mental well-being and how the lack of awareness of cancer impacted on me especially the discrimination, exclusion and stigma most African communities suffer from being sick
Strategic Focus
Cancer Impact Support Services (CISS) is registered as a Community Interest Company in the United Kingdom under the leadership of Chizara Philips. A survivor of cancer herself, Chizara has observed that many people struggle emotionally before and after cancer diagnosis and treatment. CISS was founded to empower people living with cancer to rebuild themselves physically, emotionally and psychologically during and after treatment. This could be achieved by getting those individuals affected by cancer taking part in bring awareness of the debilitating effects of cancer on cancer patients and assisting them through various wellness programmes to recover emotionally, rebuild their self-esteem, and move ahead with their lives physically, socially, and psychologically. CISS develops Cancer Locality Champions Programmers (CLCP) to help both young people and adults with cancer in the United Kingdom and elsewhere to handle their cancer diagnosis, tackle loneliness and social isolation and develop the right mind-set to be able to live through cancer towards their recover
OUR MISSION
Developing breast cancer-oriented programs for all age groups living with cancer in the United Kingdom and elsewhere that will help develop confidence through and beyond cancer diagnosis to tackle emotional wellness challenges and other related illnesses.
OUR VISION
To empower people living with breast cancer through helping them to rebuild a sense of self confidence during and after treatment.
- To raise awareness of the debilitating effects of cancer and the need to support cancer patients and survivors in order for them to move on with their lives.
- To provide psychosocial support through lay counselling and group support so as a patient or cancer survivor may recover from emotional challenges stemming from the disease.
- To have interactive support groups that allow patients and survivors to share their stories and experiences as a way of helping each other move on after recovery.
- To run seminars and workshops that bring awareness and sharing of skills and tools to help patients and survivors on their recovery and moving on after cancer treatment.
- To develop Cancer Locality Champions Programmers to help both young people and adult with cancer in the United Kingdom and elsewhere to feel like themselves and confident through and beyond their cancer diagnosis and tackle loneliness and social isolation among the cancer patients and related illnesses
Our objectives are to
- Rebuild the self-esteem of the cancer patients during and after treatment in Nottingham area and the society at large
- Get cancer patients who have gone under chemotherapy, radiotherapy and various cancer related issues and health to regain their confidence in the community
- Educate people undergoing any type of health issues associated with cancer on their right against discrimination, exclusion, and stigma that most African people suffer being sick.
- Run health and wellbeing related activities that will put smiles in the faces of individuals living with Cancer.
- Support and help young adults with cancer in the UK and elsewhere to thrive with, through and beyond a diagnosis of cancer.
- Deliver tailored support to various age group of young people of cancer patients, particularly those young people of African descent; to tackle social isolation and improve quality of life through and beyond their treatment.
- Specifically deliver practical and social support programmes tailored to the needs of young adults and give them a better chance of living well through and beyond Cancer.
- Develop a wide range of programmes that will support adults with any type and stage of cancer and work to improve their physical and psychological well-being, their quality of life and provide them with the tools they need to get moving again both through and beyond treatment.
Support hard to reach groups in the BAME and LGBTQI communities, and help raise awareness of late effects, in male and secondary cancer.
Cancer Issues among African Migrant Women
For the African woman, cancer is associated with the following issues:
Many African women migrate to the West in search of greener pastures owing to issues in their home countries where women are not treated fairly and their rights so often ignored. The expectation for a better life is often short lived as they then face realities of language barrier, discrimination and lack of acceptance in the communities they would have moved into.
It is so often difficult for BAME women to become part of the community when they move to developed countries. The integration is difficult as the differences in race as well as language barriers make it difficult for the women too generally be accepted in the communities. Feeling of discrimination become a residual result in African women.
Language plays an important part in helping people connect and integrate. The language barriers in African women migrants leads them not being understood resulting in their stories being lost during the process of assessment. In general the failure in expressing oneself leads to feeling of being lost as the core of who one is does not come out as it should be, thereby affecting one’s identity.
The result of the foregoing is that African women are often left in emotional distress. Fear, worry and depression can become constant aspect in the lives of African women, resulting in cancers for many of them.