Nadia Sarwar, an epitome of courage and hard work. She never spares even a minute chance to be better at life every day and always makes lemonade when life throws lemons at her. Word ‘’impossible’’ doesn’t exist in her vocabulary.
Nadia’s life took the major turn when she was just a 6th grader and her father faced financial crises due to which she could not afford her educational expenses. At that time she had two roads to proceed; one was to simply sit at home and wait to get betrothed to coming potential suitor and second was to take control of her own destiny. As envisioned she is, she chose the second path. At such a young age, she started working as a content writer and started supporting her educational expenses and became first of her family to get enrolled in a medical school. Since then she hasn’t stopped for a nanosecond and still getting better than ever.
Being from a conservative region, her extended family didn’t appreciate her for her talents but even that didn’t stop her from being the heroine of her own story who doesn’t need any superhero to rescue her. She would always participate in extracurricular activities in school and had won several competitions and her passion for speaking and debating grew even stronger when she entered medical school. She not only took part in debates but also won them. She started getting fame in her locality and university and among teachers and students. People started getting to know her and acknowledged her speaking skills. Everyone appreciated her confidence and loved her aura. She kept learning from her weaknesses and kept growing stronger as a person. Even though she was getting to be known, she kept becoming humble as her achievements made her a social and youth activist.
read Nadia’s writings
Distinguished individual campaign:
Pakistan has the highest incidence of breast cancer in all the Asian populations. It is the most frequent malignancy to occur in women and accounts for 38.5 percent of all cancers in women with a staggering 90,000 new cases every year, and as many as 40,000 deaths. Out of local cases, 43.7 percent are judged to be ‘advanced’ — a total that could be significantly reduced with timely intervention.
Breast cancer awareness in Pakistan is abysmally low. Women in other countries have long been persuaded by their governments to conduct a simple self-check of their own breasts every month. No medical experience or training is necessary and every woman is able to check her own body for lumps and bumps or any other irregularity in the breasts. This must not be limited to married women; any female who has passed puberty, married or single, is vulnerable. Breast cancer is often thought of as a death sentence, and the cultural propensity for fatalism feeds on this perverse perception. Women allow cancers to develop without referring themselves for diagnosis and treatment, which directly links to a culture of late detection and follow-up, which is then expressed in high levels of mortality. In places where there is a culture of early examination and diagnosis, the chances of surviving breast cancer are as high as 90 percent. Like so many other crises in the public-health sector, breast cancer is exacerbated by ignorance and an unwillingness to embrace the new. We strongly support Breast Cancer Awareness team in its efforts to raise awareness and urge the government to do the same — starting in our schools.
Being a medical student and looking at the rates of increasing breast cancer cases in the hospital she started to figure out what’s the main factor behind all this? Why this fatal disease is killing women annually. Why is the death and mortality rate increasing?
She carried out a research along with her friend (haven’t published yet, planning to publish it soon) they find out that cause is lack of awareness about this fatal disease. In Pakistan especially Kp men don’t send their women to doctor because they think it’s against their norms to get their women naked in front of doctor for treatment. So when cancer spreads and reaches to last stage they rush to hospitals.
Lack of awareness and diagnosis of cancer at end-stage leads to death. So she started an individual campaign named “Breast Cancer Awareness in KP” and conducted different seminars on Breast Cancer Awareness in different institutions of Peshawar to create awareness about this fatal disease in females of KP. The main objective was to visit different colleges, schools and create awareness among the females so that they learn physical Self-examination and they could be able to deliver these teachings to their relatives, to their mother, sisters and other females of their family. I have trained more than 2000 females about the awareness of this disease in 1 year (starting from October 2016)
She says, “My future goals are to spread awareness in the whole country especially in Rural areas of Kp and Punjab and let every woman be a part of this campaign.”
Further, she told about her campaign,
“Where ever I go, females get shocked listening to name ‘Breast’ its dilemma of my country that people consider this a shame, count it in terms of vulgarity etc Those females (students) who feel very shy at the start of my session speak out at the end of every session. They ask questions about the examination of their breast. I feel satisfied that my words gave them courage and motivation to speak their heart out, they don’t feel any shame in spreading this message in their families.
In this journey of 1 year, 4 females got diagnosed with this disease and got treated in time. It’s all because of awareness created. Now they are living their life. A lot of examples are there. We are working and I want to take this initiative to the higher level. Thanks to my parents my teachers who supported me and thanks to All-mighty who gave me courage and strength to fight for women rights.
My plan is to conduct seminars annually to train Men that they should be sent their women to doctors on time, they shouldn’t take this thing on their ego. We all have to fight for it together.
(Www.facebook.com/DocNadia.Sarwar)
She was invited as a speaker by different organizations in different events. She proved herself to be a “Young inspiring leader from the consecutive traditions of my Mansehra“. She made several appearances on different TV shows as an Inspiring young lady and a Young Blogger.
Being an Education Youth Ambassador at IdaraTaleem o Agahi., She has been working on “Community Outreach Project” since September 2017 in which She is doing career counselling of Matric (9 and 10 grade) students.
Recently, She represented Pakistan in APFL 2017 in Malaysia. With the grand theme of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Asia Pacific Future Leader Conference 2017 offers full of inspiring talks by renowned international expert on SDGs, exciting cultural exchange sessions and a comprehensive leadership training that emphasizes on 5 APLI leadership qualities which are critical thinking, problem-solving, time management skills, public speaking and negotiation skills as well as problem-solving and decision-making skills.
In this conference, being a speaker She got the best speaker and leader award (Medal and Shield) among 300 delegates from 30 different countries around the globe.
read more The Struggle of Educating a Girl Child
Today, Nadia carries so many titles along with her name; a 4th-year medical student, motivational speaker, trainer, blogger, content writer, entrepreneur, career counsellor, soft skill specialist, debater, organizer, humanitarian and a social activist, all in one. Till now she has mentored more than 3000 individuals during the course of her career and continue to do so. And she claims to be a lifelong learner. No doubt, she is a true example of dedication and consistency.
-International Affairs Reporter