Mwanga Project Targets Kenya’s Breast and Childhood Cancer Crisis with Focused, Community-Driven Solutions
The Mwanga Project, launched KENCO in partnership with AFRON is a bold initiative designed to address Kenya’s most urgent cancer control gaps: low awareness, late diagnosis, inadequate healthcare worker capacity, and limited access to care—especially for breast and childhood cancers.
Despite national efforts, fewer than 20% of eligible Kenyan women have received clinical breast exams, and most children with cancer are diagnosed too late, many without access to palliative care. Social stigma, misinformation, and high costs continue to deter early screening and treatment. Frontline health workers, especially at the primary level, are often undertrained and overwhelmed, while critical services like diagnostics and treatment remain out of reach for many under Kenya’s current social health insurance framework.
The project responds with four targeted interventions:
- Awareness: Training 50 grassroots cancer advocates and rolling out multi-channel campaigns to educate 200,000 people on early signs, risk factors, and available services.
- Capacity building: Equipping 800 primary care workers with skills in early detection of breast and childhood cancers through national virtual training.
- Advocacy: Engaging policymakers to expand funding, include cancer screening in public insurance, and prioritize access at the community level.
- Patient support: Providing insurance cover, psychosocial care, and rehabilitative tools like prostheses to 25 of the most vulnerable patients.
Aligned with Kenya’s Cancer Policy (2019–2030), the Breast Cancer Action Plan, and WHO global targets, the Mwanga Project offers a clear, results-driven approach to reducing cancer-related deaths and financial hardship, ensuring that awareness, early detection, and care are no longer privileges but basic rights.
Useful Links
Support Us
