Dubai: The official charities of the DP World Tour Championship, taking place at Jumeirah Golf Estates, are set for a bumper donation in a joint initiative driven by title sponsor DP World, The European Tour, the Tour Players Foundation and Jumeirah Golf Estates.
Friends of Cancer Patients and Special Needs Families Group are the two charity partners of the event and the better the players play, the more money they stand to make.
That is the premise of the ‘Birdie Pledge’. “For every birdie we’ll donate $50, for every eagle we’ll donate $100 and we’re hoping to raise at least $50,000 this week,” said Jonathan Orr, Financial Director, The European Tour and Trustee of the Tour Players Foundation.
Dr Sawsan Abdul Salam Al Madhi, Secretary General, Friends of Cancer Patients, which has a stand in the Championship Village at the event raising awareness about cancers afflicting men – particularly prostate and testicular - made a special visit to the tournament on Saturday along with Dr Abdul Qadir Al Zarouni, President, Emirates Urological Society.
“The initiative that we’re running in the Championship Village is called Shanab, which is the Arabic word for moustache which has become the international symbol for male solidarity. It’s the first male cancer initiative in the UAE. Most people know about the Pink Caravan breast cancer awareness initiative that we launched back in 2011 but we wanted to focus more on the male cancers this time and we found that a platform involving sports and healthy lifestyle such as the DP World Tour Championship is perfect,” noted Dr Al Madhi.
“Humour is the only way you can talk to men. Basically we just want to start the conversation, create that awareness that there is something called testicular cancer, something called prostate cancer and then explain what they are. We wanted men to sit on the beanbags and experience something that feels abnormal and then carry on the conversation from there,” she added.
“Cancer should not be a taboo subject because any cancer, if it is discovered at an early stage, is treatable. The problem with prostate cancer and testicular cancer is that they are what we call silent killers. If discovered in the early stages, the treatment is almost hundred per cent successful,” said Dr Al Zarouni.
