GE holds Healthymagination Walk to support breast cancer awareness

MANILA, Philippines - Pink was the color of the day and “living healthy and taking charge of one’s health” was the battle cry when GE held the “Healthymagination Walk” at the Bonifacio Global City (BGC). GE employees and volunteers and their families, as well as some the company’s partners from different sectors, walked together to raise awareness of breast cancer.

The air was filled with enthusiasm and energy as some 300 participants, clad in their pink GE shirts, gladly joined the activities prior to the actual three-kilometer walk around BGC. Informative and inspiring talks kicked off the event. Dr. Theresa Buenflor (staff breast imager) from the Breast Center of St. Luke’s Medical Center (SLMC) spoke about risk factors, detection, tests and prevention. Sharing an inspirational story on how she fought the Big C was Evelyn Yoro, vice president of Corridor of Hope (the official cancer support group of SLMC).

Another anti-cancer advocate, Pia Magalona, said in her short remarks that “We can be in control of our own lives and we have to be in charge of our own body. It is God-given and we should respect that.”

To prepare everyone for the walk, fitness guru David Montecillo led the Qigong warm-up exercises that featured light stress-busting moves. Wrapping up the pre-walk program was the human pink ribbon formation with everyone happily waving pink balloons and GE flaglets.  

Human pink ribbon: Participants in the GE Healthymagination Walk formed a human pink ribbon at BGC.

“Through the ‘Healthymagination Walk’ we at GE were able to stand together to raise awareness of breast cancer and early detection. It was our ‘pink’ way of underlining GE’s commitment to making an impact in the detection and successful treatment of breast cancer,” said Jessica Blas, GE corporate communications manager for Philippines, Singapore, Vietnam and Cambodia.

GE stays true to its commitment in pursuing its Healthymagination campaign, a company-wide initiative that addresses the need for sustainable and better healthcare.   This growth pillar focuses on innovations that measurably improve health costs, access and quality. Last September, GE and several partners launched a new Healthymagination fight against cancer aimed at accelerating cancer innovation and improving care while reducing cost for 10 million patients around the world by 2020. 

GE CEO and chairman Jeff Immelt and several venture capital partners announced a Healthymagination open innovation challenge to fund promising ideas to improve breast cancer diagnostics. Immelt said GE will spend $1 billion through 2020 on R&D programs to expand its suite of advanced technologies and solutions for cancer detection and treatment, beginning with breast cancer. 

GE Healthcare also just announced that $1 billion of its total R&D budget through 2020 will be devoted to the development of oncology solutions.

Breast Cancer Awareness: Anti-cancer advocates showed support of breast cancer awareness in GE’s recent Healthymagination Walk (from left) Koi Koi Mejia from the Francis Magalona Foundation; Jessica Blas, GE Phils. corporate communications ,anager; Patty Balquiedra from The Francis Magalona Foundation; Pia Magalona and Coach Pia Acevedo of One Core.

To learn more about this initiative, visit www.healthymagination.com.