Jubilee Post News & Views
Hyderabad. The coveted Guinness World Records winner ‘Global Grace Cancer Run’ hosted by Grace Cancer Foundation, a charity organisation working to provide succour to cancer patients; will be held on 9th October, 2022, across the globe in the hybrid formats of both physical and virtual run. Chief Guest Ms Amala Akkineni, Popular Actress and Animal Welfare Activist; released the Global Grace Cancer Run 2022 poster, at Hotel Daspalla, Jubilee Hills, today.
Guest of Honour Shri Ajay Misra, IAS (Retd.), Former Special Chief Secretary, Government of Telangana and Dr Chinnababu Sunkavalli, Founder & CEO, Grace Cancer Foundation; Mr Sujatha Rao, IPS (Retd.), Dr Prameela Rani, Founder Trustee, Grace Cancer Foundation and Mr Niranjan Raj, Race Director of Global Grace Cancer Run 2022; graced the occasion among others.
The theme of the annual run for this year is ‘Run the extra mile to gift a smile’, to encourage runners from across the Globe to participate in the run and contribute their might to the noble cause of cancer awareness, prevention and early detection, in the fight against the dreaded disease.
The run will be held in three different distance categories of 5K, 10K and 21.1K (Half Marathon), in the hybrid format of both physical and virtual. The physical run will be held at Hyderabad, Bangalore, Vijayawada, Vizag, Guntur, Nizamabad, Davanagere and in cities across 130 countries globally. Participants keen on virtual run format can join the race from any part of the world. Runners are expected to run between 5.00 and 9.00 am; in their respective time zones globally. The interested enthusiasts can access details of the run and register at https://gracecancerrun2022.iq301.com/
Grace Cancer Foundation is rendering yeoman service by striving to raise cancer awareness among the under-served and under-privileged communities. It facilitates screening camps for them and advises them for timely treatment. This is indeed a step towards better and healthier tomorrow and a footprint to be left in the book of humanity, says Ms Amala Akkineni. It’s true that my father-in-law Akkineni Nageshwar Rao garu had cancer in the last stages, but he worked till the end, while suffering from cancer he worked on Manam cinema.
Lying on the hospital bed, in the last stages he dubbed for the film Manam. He made clear to everyone that you need not look sad, because I had such a wonderful life with the blessings of Telugu people across the world. Yes, when the word cancer came to us as a family, it brought along a lot of fear and worry, we knew there will be pain and suffering and to so many people across the world cancer is a very frightening word and when that emotion comes, kind people, kind doctors of the family step up to educate the family on how to cope. Today Dr Chinnababu and Dr Pramila have come together with their entire Grace Cancer Foundation team to bring the support to the world.
In our family there were the doctors from KIMS hospital, when it happened to my family we had Usha Lakshmi Breast Cancer Foundation’s Dr Raghuram come forward and you know that association you have with your doctor who has helped you never goes, there is always that gratitude, in your time of need these people were always there to hold your hand and help your family deal with that.
Dr Chinnababu educated me that there are a hundred types of cancers and of course we all know that cancer doesn’t see any discrimination, whether you are child or a grown-up elder person, whether you are rich or poor, whatever be the color of your skin or race, it doesn’t distinguish, it will come to everybody.
But the good news is that the cancer research has made amazing advances, the treatment available is amazing, but most of all early detection can save lives and that I think is the strength of Grace Cancer Foundation and what they are trying to do is to tell people to take charge of your health and find out early if you have cancer and if you don’t take your health very seriously.
I think that is the deeper issue for cancer or any other illness that hits us, we don’t love ourselves enough, we don’t love our home planet enough and therefore we neglected everything.
I have been working for environment and animals for a longtime as Dr Chinnababu has been working for cancer and today, I offer my strength and voice to make an appeal to people not just in Hyderabad but across the world to participate in this Grace Global Cancer Run and the date of it is October 9th, which gives you plenty of time to train and get ready.
The causes of cancer are associated with many things, it’s in the air, its in our food, most of the weedicides and pesticides are known to cause cancer, yet they are widely used, your very food that you eat every day is full of toxins that can cause cancer. It’s in the air, food, it’s in our lifestyles and today is the day you can commit by saying ok I have a Global cancer run to attend in October, let me get up and take charge of my life, if you never walked or run it’s a good day to start, the weather is beautiful, step out, attempt one kilometer, then two then three, may be you will take part with your family in the 5K run or push yourself and go up to 10k and may be you can be a champion and finish the entire 21K, but please do this for yourself, do this for your family and do this for your future.
My sincere gratitude to all the wonderful doctors who helped so many families navigate illness to better health, who have been the guiding light, who have taken extra efforts to bring awareness to humanity, gratitude to all the researchers who are finding cures to human suffering and my very good wishes to all those battling cancer. Hope to see everyone out there on the 9th of October at the Grace Global Cancer Run.
Cancer screening and detection had taken a back seat and most detected with cancer postponed the treatment during the last two years due to the global pandemic, which created havoc in our lives. However, this late detection and treatment only increased the burden of cancer with several patients presenting themselves in terminal stage. Therefore, enhanced effort to create awareness to undergo early screening and detection is the need of the hour.
It’s time for us to bounce back by refocusing our efforts on awareness and restoring our health. What’s heartening is that most cancers are curable with early detection. ‘Global Grace Cancer Run’ is an initiative to awaken the world to the lurking danger of cancer and work towards early detection, says Dr Chinnababu Sunkavalli.
Shri Ajay Misra said, currently with the available resources and time, a few thousand persons in the rural areas are being screened every year by Grace Cancer Foundation and as Dr Chinnababu said plans are there to increase the screening process substantively by going up to maybe five to ten lakhs in both the states put together, that’s a much-needed requirement. As per WHO statistics, one in every 10 Indians is likely to be detected with some kind of cancer in the coming years and that’s a huge number to be covered and with all the facilities, medical and outreach at our disposal we are not yet equipped to deal with that kind of a scale of problem. The deaths which happen due to different kinds of cancer are also the second largest in the world only after heart ailments.
We know what is required, but many a times we don’t follow that. Sedentary lifestyle, irresponsible eating habits are the two main reasons contributing to cancer incidence, if we address these two, consciously cultivate activity and take care of what and how much we eat, to a large extent it may help in prevention of cancer.
But many of us are unable to follow it for different reasons, in that context organizing of a cancer run is a necessity. Grace Cancer run need to be commended for growing in outreach and numbers, around 130 countries with one lakh people are expected to participate in the run this year.
Mr Niranjan Raj said, Grace Cancer Foundation’s journey and the run hosted by the Foundation since 2008 made a significant impact in spreading awareness about cancer and active lifestyle and in turn helped people to avoid cancer and keep it at bay. We have had great support from organizations and participants during this journey.
While we continue to work on various health initiatives as a Foundation, I am excited to share the details of the 5th edition of the Global Grace Cancer Run’.
Today the run is truly a global phenomenon with active participation from over 75000 people from more than 120 countries in the last year, this despite some of the biggest Runs and marathons getting cancelled due to the pandemic. Grace Cancer Foundation took it as an opportunity and went virtual, our participation increased from 12000 runners to 50000 runners in 2020 itself and last year we touched 75000 runners. With the same spirit we are targeting one lakh participants for this year from more than 130 countries and are confident of achieving it. This year’s run is scheduled on 9th of October, Sunday.
We will ensure as always, all the amenities to the participants. Those joining from other cities can run at their own convenience, they will have a 15 days’ time frame, by when they can complete their run, share the details and we will provide them certificate. Organizers, volunteers and runners come together to honor cancer survivors, it’s an annual festival to raise awareness about cancer, to raise funds to help reach out to underprivileged people for cancer screening, especially those who can’t afford treatment. Every runner who participates contributes to the screening of one person, that’s the moto we are working with. The theme for this year is ‘Run the extra mile to gift a smile.
The Grace Cancer Run won the coveted Guinness World Records in the year 2020, on two counts of most live viewers for a female health awareness lesson on YouTube and most videos of people running/ jogging uploaded to Facebook in one hour and is proactively aspiring for more recognitions this year.
Global Grace Cancer Run 2022; is powered by Ryan and NATCO; Co-Sponsored by NMDC; Raghunath Agro Commodities; Movers.com; MEIL and Smart IMS. The event is being sponsored in partnership with SCSC, CPOI, AP & Telangana Police and Global Grace Health and is being hosted in association with Hyderabad Runners, NASSCOM, AMCHAM India and HYSEA.
