The WHRFC Annual Report for 2018 was approved at the June 18 , 2018 Annual General Meeting.
The Women’s Health Research Foundation of Canada Inc., (WHRFC), has had another very successful year. A healthy activity fundraiser, Dance For Your Health 2018 (DFYH 2018) was held at Charisma of India Restaurant on Monday March 12, 2018 focussed on Bollywood Dancing and Charisma’s wonderful East Indian Buffet. Chrissy Troy of 103.1 Virgin Radio brought her lively sense of fun to the evening as MC. Our President Dr. Lynn Scruby welcomed everyone and moderated our award winner’s 3 minute presentations. Our 2017 full-time graduate student scholarship winners Dhiwya Attawar and Chloe Shindruk plus part-time graduate scholarship winner Olasumbo Ojo impressed everyone with their presentations of their research projects. The Bollywood Siblings demonstrated this urban form of Indian dancing and led a workshop for 100 guests to try some Bollywood moves. “Asra” wowed us with her bellydancing and audience participation. Roshni and Pascal added there Bollywood interpretations to the evening. Over a dozen guests took home door or raffle prizes. DFYH 2018 together with our Target Mail Campaign and Corporate Campaign brought in over $14,000 to support women’s health research.
Dhiwya Attawar, a PhD student in the Department of Community Health Sciences won a 2017 WHRFC scholarship for full-time graduate students doing women’s health research at the University of Manitoba. Her research focusses on “The Community Health Worker in Maternal, Newborn, Child Health Interventions in Rural South India: Tracing Equity at the Health System-Community Interface” and her Supervisor is Dr. James Blanchard. Chloe Shindruk, a MN student in Nursing, won a full-time graduate student scholarship for her project “Expert Nursing Care: Perinatal Palliative Care during Labor, Delivery, and the Immediate Postpartum Period. Her Supervisors are Dr Genevieve Thompson and Dr. Susan McClement Co-Supervisor. Olasumbo Ojo, an MSc student in Pharmacy won the part-time graduate student scholarship for her project “Management of Osteoporosis in Women: Evaluating Screening (Bone Mineral Density Test) and Treatment Practices”. Her Supervisors are Dr. Shawn Bugden and Dr. Jamie Falk (Co-Supervisor).
The annual Manitoba School Science Symposium (MSSS) was held in the last weekend in April at the University of Manitoba. The WHRFC provided awards at three of the four grade levels, all to commend and encourage young scientists in Manitoba whose projects related to women’s health.
A WHRFC award for the best women’s health research project was presented by our Past-President Dr. Silvia Alessi-Severini at the Canadian National Medical Student Research Symposium, a national poster competition held annually by the Max Rady College of Medicine, Rady Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Manitoba. The 2017 winner was Lacey Haddon, a PhD student at the University of Alberta. Her research topic was “Eliminating the Luminal Grey Zone: Using a Novel Estrogen Receptor DNA-Binding Signature to Describe Luminal A Breast Cancer”.
Please check out our web site for current and future activities of the WHRFC www.whrfcinc.com.