The campaign tagged “Cancer Awareness and ZSX Screening” will provide, not just free cancer screening to indigent Nigerians, but also health education, workshops, and consultations with healthcare professionals aimed at empowering individuals to recognize early symptoms, adopt preventive health measures, and better understand the importance of regular screenings.

The campaign which will be organised in collaboration with local health authorities and expert healthcare providers is targeted at reaching about 3,000 individuals across the six geo-political zones with screening centres in Kaduna, Rivers, Ondo, Benue, Imo, and Gombe.

The initiative will focus on breast, cervical, and prostate cancer, offering critical early detection support for at-risk populations.

Shedding more light on the objectives of the campaign, Mrs. Emmanuella Arukwe, the managing director of NNPC Foundation, said:

“The fight against cancer requires a collective effort and a commitment to ensuring accessible healthcare. This campaign is about more than just screening; it’s about saving lives, building awareness, and creating pathways to preventive care for Nigerians who need it most.

“In a country of over 200 million people, too many still lack access to the early detection tools that could make a life-saving difference. NNPC Foundation is dedicated to addressing this critical gap by bringing cancer screenings directly to communities. Early detection is crucial to improving survival rates, and this campaign is a vital step towards that goal.”

Cancer remains one of the most formidable health challenges in Nigeria, with over 79,000 cancer-related deaths annually, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

The most common cancers affecting Nigerian men include prostate and liver cancer, while women are predominantly impacted by breast and cervical cancers.

The campaign seeks to counter the trend of late-stage diagnoses, which occur frequently due to limited access to screening facilities, cultural stigmas, and insufficient awareness.

This initiative follows the success of a screening drive in February 2024, where over 200 Abuja residents received free breast, cervical, and prostate cancer screenings.

These free cancer screening campaigns reflect NNPCL’s broader mission to promote health equity and enhance the well-being of Nigerians across the country through its Foundation.

Billed to hold from July 2nd to 10th, 2024, the exercise is an integral part of the NNPC Foundation’s Financial Literacy Program for Nigerian youths that witnessed the engagement of over 284,000 corps members, who underwent rigorous training and assessments.

Speaking on the exercise, Mrs. Emmanuella Arukwe, the managing director of NNPC Foundation, said the selection criteria will focus on the feasibility and sustainability of the business idea, market relevance, competitive edge and innovation, scalability, potential impact on the community and the entrepreneurial spirit of the corps members.

“We have identified these 2,659 individuals who are ready to present their business ideas to a distinguished panel of assessors,” Arukwe stated.

Arukwe informed that the Financial Literacy Program is aligned with the NNPC Foundation’s mission of equipping young Nigerian graduates with necessary skills for personal and professional development.

“By educating corps members on financial management and entrepreneurship, the program aims to empower them to become economically self-sufficient and to contribute positively to society,” she added.

During the pitching exercise, projects that standout will receive startup packs, business advisory services, and opportunities to scale their ventures.

In a related development, the management of NNPC Foundation has facilitated a significant 50% reduction in the registration fee for corps members’ businesses with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC).

The NNPC Foundation is the Corporate Social Responsibility arm of NNPC Limited. Its initiatives focus on enhancing Nigeria’s socio-economic development through targeted interventions in education, health, the environment, access to energy and youth empowerment to foster economic empowerment, promote entrepreneurship, and support sustainable development across the nation.

The training, which aligned with the objectives of Skills Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Development (SAED) scheme of NYSC had its maiden edition featuring Batch B stream in the past months.

So far over 118,000 youth corps members have been trained in financial literacy, while about 70,000 are being trained across the 37 NYSC orientation camps in the country.

Speaking during the training, Emmanuella Arukwe, the Managing Director, NNPC Foundation, described financial literacy as not only the bedrock of all successes in the ever-competitive labour market, but a journey towards attaining self-actualization, thereby heralding the trajectory to sustainable prosperity of the nation.

Arukwe, who implored the corps members to leverage on the knowledge garnered from the training to avert white collar job syndrome, added that the NNPC Foundation is committed to impacting the youth corps members to become employers of labour.

“We are partnering with both NYSC and Kudimata to bring financial literacy to the corps members, as this will help them make better-informed decisions. We are very passionate about young people and NYSC is a veritable ground as it cuts across 20 to 30 years old youth, thus, making it the right demography,” she stated.

According to her;

“This programme cuts across the 36 states of the country including the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). This is the first step towards a series of programmes that will culminate in instilling entrepreneurship in the Corps members. After this training, those who pass the examination by 70 percent will move to the next stage. The next stage will keep them better informed on how to run businesses to ensure success in their businesses. Thereafter, we will do a pitching where those who are properly trained will be selected and be given start-up kits to go ahead and be on their own.”

Addressing unemployment as the greatest problem of young graduates, she said, “We are aware of unemployment as a challenge plaguing young graduates and we recognize the need to empower the youths through capacity building of this magnitude for them to empower the whole nation. This training will help reduce unemployment and underemployment in Nigeria, thereby making the corps members employers of labour.”

In her remarks, the FCT Coordinator, NYSC, Shokpeka Winifred expressed her profound gratitude to both NNPC Foundation and Kudimata Nigeria Ltd for their unwavering support to empower the corps members to enable them to become self-reliant individuals and wealth creators.

Winifred described the training as a platform for young people to learn the best ways of managing their finances, while also grooming them to become good managers of resources.

“Going forward, I’m confident that they will put what they have learnt to use by utilizing their funds well as they are now aware of how to earn, maintain and multiply their finances. We are striving to see them becoming business owners tomorrow through further mentorship,” the Coordinator concluded.

One of the corps members at the NYSC orientation camp in Abuja, Prudence Enema said:

“I’m thrilled that the NNPC Foundation took their time to train us on financial literacy, we are aware that financial literacy is very important, and we have learnt a lot on how to multiply our money in order not to suffer in the future.”

Another corps member, Okeke Ugochukwu revealed that the training was worthwhile as the importance of saving and categorization of finances were taught effectively.