Abu Dhabi: The Al Hudayriat Island was a buzz with activity all through Saturday where two Guinness World Records in Support of Cancer Awareness were set in a bid to bring UAE’s and the world’s attention to the rising need for cancer prevention awareness.
Coinciding with International Breast Cancer Awareness Month, the event was organised by VPS Healthcare and Burjeel Medical City.
The records were attempted in three categories — the longest awareness ribbon, the largest number of pairs attaching awareness ribbons to each other simultaneously and most people making and wearing awareness ribbons at the same time.
The organisers, with the support of the large crowd, had success straight away in the first event itself — the longest awareness ribbon and VPS Group CEO Amir Firdaus Abdullah was elated with the effort.
“We are really delighted that we managed to set the record for UAE and mainly for the awareness of breast cancer. It was a 4.108km pink ribbon that was setup. With this record we want to make sure that all women in UAE and across the World are aware of breast cancer. The need to have early detection as well and to ensure that we at VPS work with the community towards such cause,” said Firdaus Abdullah, who went on to add that the decision to attempt multiple records was to ensure that if one wasn’t successful there were a couple more.
Later in the evening, Abu Dhabi also managed to set a Guinness World Record for the largest number of pairs attaching awareness ribbons to each other simultaneously. A total of 381 pairs from all sections of society took part in the event to eclipse the previous record of 125. “We wanted to have a Guinness World Record for us and for UAE with regards to this cause. Adding few more record attempt events made it more interesting, increased our chances and also drew more people to join the cause,” revealed Firdaus Abdullah, proudly holding the framed Guinness World Record certificate.
However, the third Guinness World Record attempt for most people making and wearing awareness ribbons fell short due to lack of participants.
“I wanted to be a part of the cancer awareness programme more than the Guinness World Record. Especially because so many people are getting effected with it. I know someone who is fighting with cancer,” said 24-year-old Ahmad Hussain, who had turned up with his friends for the event.
