by Ifreke Inyang

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and Y!TV this Sunday on Rubbin’ Minds will be joining the campaign. On the first segment, we will have Greg Odutayo, who is the National President of NANTAP and Wole Oguntokun, a renowned Writer and Director. They will be discussing FESTINA 2011. FESTINA is the Festival of Nigerian Plays. It’s a celebration of Theatre in Nigeria by NANTAP. They will also talk about the series of live plays and entertainment they have planned for FESTINA 2011 which has been rescheduled to run from October 21 to November 15, 2011.

FESTINA was initiated in 1999 by National Association of Nigerian Theatre Arts Practitioners (NANTAP) with the support of Ford Foundation. It is a carnival of great plays by accomplished playwrights, performed by some of the best performers in the contemporary Nigerian theatre industry. FESTINA is Nigeria’s biggest cultural event since FESTAC’77. It was conceived to bring together Arts practitioners annually and showcase Africa’s rich Cultural heritage in drama, dance, music, visual art and literature with a view to encourage networking and partnerships.

Then, it will be the turn of Nollywood star, Stella Damasus and Dr. Efosa Elliots to discuss cancer. The aim of this topic is to join in the Pink October campaign. Pink October is dedicated to creating awareness on Breast Cancer, giving support to those who have it and celebrating survivors by sharing their stories. We will look into the topic through the following keypoints:

1. Knowledge:- awareness/ acknowledgement of breast cancer, going for screening/ personal check up, prevention, genetics, causes, early/late detection, male/female breast cancer, etc.

2. Hope:- finding help, treatment, psychological/ physical impact of treatment

3. Healing:- medical support, family/other support, back to living as a survivor, traumatic side effects, possibility of total healing, joining the create more awareness force.

4. Diets that can improve our well being and reduce the risk of cancer generally.

Join the conversation this Sunday by 3pm on Channels TV. You can also watch online via: www.ynaija.com/rubbin-minds. If you have any questions about NANTAP, FESTINA 2011 or cancer, tweet your answers and include the hashtag #RubbinMinds or drop them as a comment here.

Oluwapelumi