Breast cancer affects about half as many women in Uganda as in the UK. BUT they rarely survive. The overriding reason is lack of access to health care.

The cover photo is Skovia from northern rural Uganda. She 35 yrs old. 2 years ago she saw a doctor with a breast lump and was told to go to Kampala. She didnt have the £7.50 bus fare - so she couldn't go.

We are a breast team in northern Uganda, set up to train midwives in the community as breast nurses to examine, ultrasound and biopsy breast lumps, and link the pathology into a network that is successfully helping these women. I am one of the local breast surgeons in Dorset that has had a uk government fund to set this up.

Now we are up and runnning, we need to support the women in their travel to get their treatment. We found Skovia, sadly with secondary bone cancer, but she is now having chemotherapy in Kampala and getting better..... and there are many more. We have seen well over 800 women and 20% have breast problem that needed diagnosing and treating. 3% had cancers. Now the women know who to come to they are coming forward.

It's easy to think of Africa as having problems with Malaria and TB rather than breast cancer. But in this community, in the North in particular, the impact from the loss of a woman is devastating for a large number of family members, the children are orphaned, the elderly parents are neglected and more. The region is only 12 years out from a the civil war incited by Joseph Kony's Lord's resistance army that decimated the communities and yet they are still smiling!

We are also working with the Uganda cancer institute and the ministry of health and helping to catalyse a network nationwide on building the health care pathway.... but we need a personal fund to support this particular neglected issue.

Website is in the process of being created! More film and photo to come.

Irene outside her hut she has always lived in - she's 95 and has breast cancer and being treated now

Educating a small group of women who have come to the breast clinic about breast care.

Training the team in ultrasound

The handheld ultrasound image of a breast lump, which can be relayed from the rural clinic to a radiologist for reporting.