Bosom Buddies gift to the Canberra community

Posted on 15 December, 2015

Bosom Buddies ACT is funding a gift to the Canberra community in celebration of their 20th anniversary.

For twenty years Bosom Buddies ACT volunteers have personally and individually supported women diagnosed with breast cancer, and their families, during challenging times. Volunteers have also helped raise awareness of breast cancer (which will affect 1 of 8 women) and the importance of early diagnosis to ensure the best outcomes.

As Bosom Buddies ACT has evolved, growing into an incorporated body and then a registered charity, we have been dependent on local individuals, businesses, churches, sporting and social groups to promote our work, to donate and to fundraise for us. Bosom Buddies works for the good of the community and without the support of the community we could not carry out our work.

To mark our 20th Anniversary we wanted to give a gift to the community. We have printed 20,000 ‘shower tags’ – waterproof tags that can hang in a shower to show women how to check their breasts and to emphasise the importance of early detection of breast changes.

These 20,000 tags will be distributed over the coming year through BreastScreen ACT, health centres, and medical practices, in Canberra and regionally, as well as by Bosom Buddies at Breast Awareness presentations and fundraising events.

We were pleased that our work has been recognised in the Legislative Assembly by the Minister for Health, Simon Corbell: “Over the past 20 years Bosom Buddies volunteers have supported women undergoing treatment for breast cancer and have actively promoted the importance of the early detection of breast cancer through their community awareness program. The types of programs Bosom Buddies have delivered for people with breast cancer include personalised support via phone, in hospital, and visits.

“There is the blue buddy gift bag program that they provide, which has handmade drainage bags and underarm cushions made by women across the region, literature from all the other support groups and medical information from breast care nurses. Over 400 of these bags were provided to the hospital last year and that is a regular volume that we see most years.

“Then there are the breast awareness presentations to organisations large and small and their engagement with BreastScreen ACT to develop literature, show bags and other information for people undertaking the screening program.

“For the past 20 years Bosom Buddies have provided thousands of local Canberra women with important support at what is a very difficult time. I would like to congratulate them in particular on their 20th anniversary.”

Bosom Buddies welcome enquiries about our free Breast Awareness presentations from workplace and community groups, and encourage women who have completed their breast cancer treatment to consider joining our volunteers. We also welcome interest from other people in the community about joining our management.

Below are the shower buddies which you can print out yourself!

Find out more about Bosom Buddies on their website.

Image of ‘health, medicine, beauty concept‘ via Shutterstock