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News from the President
Dear National Representatives,
Time flies and it’s already February. In Gothenburg, my hometown in Sweden, we have not seen much winter weather this year. We have had lots of rains and storms, so the climate change and threat is very obvious to all of us. Although it is a little late I want to wish all of you a new successful advocacy year in the combat against breast cancer.
2007 and especially the autumn was a very active period. The 8th EUROPA DONNA Pan-European Conference "European Breast Cancer Advocacy: Ensuring Progress on Best Practice" took place in Amsterdam on 27-28 October and brought together more than 200 advocates from the Coalition’s 40 member countries. One of the highlights in the programme was when Dr. Nick Perry presented the 4th edition of the "European Guidelines for Quality Assurance in Breast Cancer Screening and Diagnosis" in a special webcast session, and emphasised the importance of the guidelines in lobbying for best practice. At the conference EUROPA DONNA also released its ”Short guide to the EU Guidelines” a booklet highlighting the main points of the guidelines. The conference programme also dealt with the latest in diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer, health economics and access to new treatments, the needs of younger and older women with breast cancer, lifestyle factors and complementary medicine.
Another important event was the Advocacy Training Course which took place in Milan November 9-11 2007. 42 breast cancer advocates from 26 of EUROPA DONNA’s 40 member countries in Europe attended the course. They learned about the latest developments in breast cancer research and treatment as well as advocacy techniques that can be used to influence public health policy. This was followed by a full day workshop designed to sharpen their communication and presentation skills. The course was sponsored and organised by EUROPA DONNA and supported by a grant from the European Union.
In January the Executive Board of Europa Donna held its first meeting of the year. This time we had a new board member Sema Erdem from Turkey, who was elected to the board at the General Assembly in Amsterdam. Unfortunately Adriana Bonifacino has stepped down from her position at the board very much to the regret of all the board members and office staff. The board discussed and made decisions about the annual report 2007, the budget 2008 and strategic plan implementation. One of the items on the agenda was to select the winner of the Nathwani Prize to be given out at EBCC-6 and to decide about the fellowships for young women to go to EBCC-6 in Berlin.
One of the highlights of 2008 is EBCC-6 hosted by EUROPA DONNA, EORTC and EUSOMA and taking place in Berlin, Germany in April. It is the only conference of its kind to bring together the voices of doctors, researchers, nurses and advocates. I do hope that all the national fora will take the opportunity to use the bursaries to send two participants. I hope to meet a large number of our members there, especially at our General Assembly and reception which will take place Thursday 17 April starting at 18:00.
I want to wish you all a very nice spring and much success with your important advocacy efforts.
Yours, Ingrid Kössler
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