Three students from Turin at “Just The Woman I Am.”
On the first three days of March, Piazza San Carlo in Turin, hosted Just The Woman I Am, a five kilometre marathon and a Village for Prevention and Wellbeing providing citizens with free screening visits, advice, conference, and webinars – a meeting and celebration between academia, Italian health excellence, citizens, and schools.
An active part of this important initiative was conducted by Women Against Lung Cancer (WALCE), a patient associations participating in the fourth edition of Project Factor J, promoted with Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine.
WALCE involved three young women in class 3F at the Liceo Altiero Spinelli in Turin, which has been participating in FMD activities for many various editions. Francesca, Olivia, and Carlotta participated seriously and enthusiastically in the activities, also receiving compliments form the WALCE Secretary, Stefania Vallone.
Francesca Bazzone reported on the experience:
I participated in the activities proposed by WALCE in Piazza San Carlo in Turin. Furthermore, on February 23rd, my classmates and I also participated in a short training course at the San Luigi Hospital in Orbassano and it was a very interesting and educational experience. Our contacts were Cristina Destro and Stefania Vallone, but all the people and doctors we met were available to answer our curiosities and each of them accompanied us at different times. My task was mainly to raise awareness of lung cancer and HPV to the people who came to the WALCE stand, but my favourite activity at the hospital, where I was informed about these issues and had the opportunity to visit the laboratory where oncologists work to carry out tumour research. I liked this part very much, because WALCE’s collaborators explained the whole theoretical part to us and then showed us in a practical way what they had just explained.
Another particularly touching moment was the meeting with Carlotta, a former patient of the hospital, who struck me with her energy and smile. I believe that the experience I had with WALCE was one of the best organized by the school and it certainly was enriching and instructive. After this experience, I will certainly want to carry out other volunteer activities, especially in the medical field, given that in the future I would like to study medicine.
