Cooper Library Branch to Host 5-Week Workshop on Cancer
By Shelley Shelton, The Arizona Daily Star, Tucson
Jan. 10–The Martha Cooper Branch of the Pima County Public Library beginning tonight will host a five-week series of workshops called Taking Control of Cancer.
The series will feature Catherine Marshall, founder of the non-profit organization Women’s International Leadership Institute. She also will have a special guest for most sessions.
“Catherine Marshall is a Ph.D. from Northern Arizona University, and she’s worked with various cancer and health-related organizations to do this kind of thing in the past,” said Matthew Landon, the librarian at Martha Cooper who has been coordinating the workshops.
The series is part of a wider focus on health literacy across the library system, he said.
“We’ve worked with the refugee population to do some English-language learning and literacy classes, but this is the first health-related thing we’ve done as far as a workshop,” he said.
Because of the library’s location in the middle of the area dubbed the “West Nile hot zone” several months ago, the branch hosted a presentation about the West Nile virus, he said. But this is the first coordinated health event there.
The workshop organizers would like to see family members of people affected by cancer take advantage of the information that will be offered, Landon said.
Family members are the ones most often in need of information when a loved one is diagnosed, he said.
But cancer survivors also have an ongoing need for information and support, and they can find that at the workshops, he said.
Special guests will help Marshall present some of the topics. Tonight, Maria Tirado from the National Cancer Institute’s Cancer Information Service will be on hand to answer questions.
Next week, someone from a cancer information service will pass out grocery bags full of cancer information.
“This is going to be a self-help type thing where people will be empowered to get their own information,” Landon said.
No medical diagnoses will take place at the workshops, he said.
What: Taking Control of Cancer workshop series.
When: 6 to 8 p.m. for five consecutive Wednesdays beginning this evening.
Where: Martha Cooper Branch library, 1377 N. Catalina Ave.
For reservations: 791-3257.
Cost: Free.
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Copyright (c) 2007, The Arizona Daily Star, Tucson
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.
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