REGIONAL CANCER COALITIONS TO ATTEND SUMMIT IN D.C.

Nearly 60 community volunteers from the Southern Appalachia Leadership Initiative on Cancer (SALIC) Project will join Health and Human Services secretary Donna Shalala, National Cancer Institute (NCI) officials and other leaders and activists at the Appalachia Leadership Initiative on Cancer's (ALIC) first program-wide summit on July 10-13 in Washington, D.C. The Southern ALIC region includes North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia.

The event at the Washington Marriott Hotel is expected to attract more than 300 community leaders, breast cancer survivors, health care professionals, social workers, and local officials working with more than 75 grass-roots cancer control coalitions in 11 Appalachian states. The North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service has been actively involved in this program since its inception five years ago.

"One of the most important and gratifying lessons that we've learned from this project is that motivated people can take responsibility for their own health and their own destinies," says Brenda Stone-Wiggins, SALIC Project Manager with the North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service. "We've seen how people in Appalachia have joined the fight against breast cancer once they became aware of the options available to them. The attention that they've earned from policy makers on the national and regional levels is just one more giant step in this journey towards early detection and a possible cure."

Appalachian history, legislative issues, cancer updates, ALIC history, social justice and access to health care, and healthful lifestyles will be among topics discussed at the summit. Workshops will address volunteer recruitment and retention, low literacy cancer resources, leadership and strategic planning, and media strategies.

ALIC was created by the National Cancer Institute five years ago to fight the high cancer rates that have long plagued rural, low-income Appalachian communities. Four regional ALIC projects have coordinated dozens of grass-roots coalitions, many of which focus on the life-saving message of early breast and cervical cancer detection.

In addition to SALIC, the projects include: the North Central Appalachia Leadership Initiative on Cancer (NCALIC), serving West Virginia and Ohio; the Central Highlands Appalachia Leadership Initiative on Cancer (CHALIC), serving Kentucky and Tennessee; and the Northern Appalachia Leadership Initiative on Cancer (NALIC), serving Maryland, New York, and Pennsylvania.