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Fundraiser aims to help African cancer women
Mark Branagan A North Yorkshire businesswoman who helped build a school for African Aids orphans is launching a £12,000 appeal to help two young Kenyan breast cancer sufferers.
Suzanne Mehmet has spent years helping to rebuild the tumbledown Mkwakwani School near Mombasa.
But while revisiting Kenya last month to see the new school – built from scratch following a campaign backed by the Yorkshire Post – she was stunned by a heartbreaking story which prompted her to launch a new appeal.
Halima Birya, 28, had already endured a lifetime of suffering before being diagnosed with breast cancer.
Halima and her husband had two children aged ten and seven, but after he died several years ago she was forced into a life of drudgery by her in-laws, and the children were taken away.
She was aware she had a lump in her breast but couldn't afford a private examination.
By the time she attended Dr Zoella Khandwalla's free screening clinic the tumour was so serious that she was given just six months to live unless she has surgery and chemotherapy.
She was not the only woman found by the clinic to need the 6,000 course of breast cancer treatment – Jackeline Mwango, 26, has also been given a similar life expectancy.
Mrs Mehmet said yesterday: "Both of them are in a terrible state and are going to die unless they get this operation. If we can do this and save someone's life it will be the most tremendous thing in the world.
"What underlines the tragedy of it all is that one of them has already had a horrendous life."
Mrs Mehmet, 36, who runs the Renaissance Hair Salon in Dean Road, Scarborough, decided to take on the new appeal because the school project has progressed so well,
Helped by Yorkshire Post readers, the community now has a new school for 1,500 children, and the Mkwakwani School Charity has been praised by the United Nations for its work.
Donations can be sent to Suzanne Mehmet, Mkwakwani School Overseas Charity, PO Box 277, Scarborough YO12 4XZ. They can also be made through Barclays Bank in Scarborough, standing order mandate sort code 207592. Account number 20829854 is for donations for the building and account number 60760803 is to sponsor individual pupils. For more details visit www.mkwakwanischool.co.uk
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Saturday 11 February 2012
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