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History & milestones

As in many other parts of the world, breast cancer is a leading cause of death for many South African women. South Africa, however, has a significantly higher mortality rate than other comparable countries, the reasons for which include the following:

• Lack of accessibility to health care centres or screening sites, within both rural and urban areas
• Lack of resources within the public sector to support such screening, this includes inadequately qualified staff as well as insufficient staff numbers; there are also only five apex or referral centres in the public sector nationally
• Cultural beliefs and stigma
• Low literacy rates and a lack of education

Confronted with these challenges, PinkDrive has created its education trucks and mobile mammography units to generate awareness, educate, and provide services to the women who need it the most.

In order to provide free services to disadvantaged communities, PinkDrive offers its services to the corporate sector, whose funds pay for the programme's running costs. Additional funds are supplied through the involvement of South African businesses, which sponsor PinkDrive as port of their corporate social responsibility.

PinkDrive is always looking for sponsorship and donors, please visit the get involved section of this website for more information.

To date, PinkDrive has made considerable progress:

• The first mobile mammography unit was launched on 30 June 2009
• The conversion and registration of the medical equipment has taken place
• The unit is equipped with the new CR unit
• Identification and discussion with interested stakeholders is ongoing within the public sector
• Development of educational literature for the rural areas is under way in collaboration with other stakeholders
• Development of a bespoke internet programme for database/statistical collection
• Work with the department of radiation, and equipment suppliers
• Continued collaboration with NGOs and government stakeholders will ensure a greater reach