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prostate cancer is one of the most survivable forms of the disease in the world — but only if it’s caught early. when this happens, 91 per cent of men can expect to live at least another five years, according to the canadian cancer society . when it doesn’t, just three in 10 men can hope to say the same.
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we also provide information: we have a website that gets around 100,000 visits per month, from all across canada and europe. the quality of this information is a key factor and we have developed a lot of tools for men because, as you know, men don’t necessarily talk about prostate cancer. the last part of what we do is raise awareness of the disease. we have various campaigns: there’s one in the spring with father’s day and we have our bowvember campaign in the fall, where we sell bow ties to help support our activities.
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after i got involved with the biobank, procure asked me to be on their board. shortly after that, their ceo was leaving and they asked if i could help in that role. i told them i would give it three years and i’m in my 10 th year now, so i found there was a lot of work to be done. i have an it background, so i’m able to help procure get involved with new technologies and help prepare them for the next venture.
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the idea is for men to buy one of our bow ties — or a box of four to share with other people. each year, we offer a unique version that you won’t see anywhere else. its purpose is to get people asking why you’re wearing that bow tie. it’s a good conversation starter. everyone knows about movember and we did participate in that, but we needed to finance our own activities. we found a way to be disruptive in the sense that you can wear a moustache if you want, but if you wear a bow tie, you’re helping something canadian that is involved with canadian men and provides services to them. the idea was to be different, to make a statement. and being present in november is important for us — we’re usually able to raise over a million dollars in that month and that helps finance our activities.
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dave yasvinski is a writer with healthing.ca