Ooredoo will provide financial support to establish a state-of-art cancer awareness centre at Barwa Towers, in Al Sadd, Doha.

Ooredoo CEO Sheikh Saud bin Nasser al-Thani and Qatar National Cancer Society (QNCS) chairman Dr Sheikh Khalid bin Jabor al-Thani signed an agreement yesterday announcing their co-operation.

The Ooredoo Cancer Awareness Centre, as it would be known, is to start functioning in September this year.

As per the agreement, Ooredoo will provide QR30mn for the construction of the centre, which would work with the active support of the Ministry of Social Affairs.

It was announced that the Cancer Awareness Centre would be the Ooredoo’s biggest Corporate Social Responsibility Project of 2014.

Apart from Ooredoo’s QR10mn support to build, equip, staff and maintain the facility, the telecom company will also contribute QR10mn for operating it, including providing the latest technology for interactive education.

Ooredoo will also provide QR2mn each for five years to support the initiatives of the Ooredoo Cancer Awareness Centre, it was announced.

At the signing, Sheikh Saud said the facility would include a high-tech education centre for students and the public. The Ooredoo CEO also expressed hope that the centre’s opening would change the statistics of cancer incidence and recovery among the country’s residents. “Besides being an educational facility, it would also help people understand more about the detection and prevention of cancer.”

The Ooredoo CEO hoped  the centre would be of great help for those going for treatment and serve as a support system for Qatari and expatriate residents undergoing life-saving treatments such as chemotherapy. He recalled the organisation’s active involvement in CSR activities like free medical camps for expatriate workers.

While thanking Ooredoo for their support, Sheikh Khalid said the centre’s main goals were to educate the public about the dreaded disease, its prevention, protection, and early detection.

Sheikh Khalid said cancer is considered to be third main cause of death in Qatar and caused approximately 12% of deaths every year.

Answering a query, the QNCS chairman said at least three cases of breast cancers are reported every week and colon cancer is on the rise among males even though the country’s figures are much lower than the world average. He said the exact figures of patients undergoing treatment as also the number of casualties on account of cancer in 2013 would be released shortly.

Ooredoo is also supporting programmes aimed at promoting a healthy lifestyle among the country’s residents and is operating among others the Fahad bin Jassim Kidney Centre, providing medical care to renal patients.

QNCS educational committee head Dera al-Dosari and Ooredoo’s community services and PR director Fatima Sultana al-Kuwari also spoke.