Komen: College Students Give Back To Prevent Breast Cancer

MIAMI – Finding affordable health insurance in tough economic times is a hard thing to do. Now, a local organization is teaching the community about general health issues and an intern at the organization is spending her time paying it forward.

Sherlley Sanon already boasts a biology degree from the University of Miami, and she plans for even more school. But Sanon wasn't always this lucky. She grew up without health insurance. Now, she wants to give back. She works as an intern for the Miami-Dade Area Health Education Center, or AHEC, and it's "Life Campaign."

Ebony Orr works as AHEC's Health Education Coordinator. "We're trying to establish lifelong habits of good breast care," said Orr.

The training starts on college campuses all over Miami-Dade.

"We educate students there so that those students can then educate the community in general on those important issues such as breast cancer," according to Orr.

The college students then teach in the community about a different issue each month.

The Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure in October is their way to reach out about breast cancer.

Sanon remembered one mother who went to the AHEC booth with her two teenage daughters to teach them how to do self exams.

"She was practicing right along with them," said Sanon. She said that hands-on learning makes all the difference. "I feel like it's that vital component, that extra piece of information, that little bit of knowledge that could have changed something, that could have sparked something."

For more information about the Miami-Dade Area Health Education Center (AHEC), go to their website at www.mdahec.org.

For more information about breast cancer education and prevention, go to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure website at www.komensouthflorida.org.