The Colombo Municipal Council building was lit in pink on Monday evening to mark Breast Cancer Awareness Month, observed internationally every October as “Pink October”.
The symbolic lighting ceremony was organised in support of Sri Lanka’s National Cancer Control Programme and held in partnership with the Indira Cancer Trust, NewsFirst reported. It drew health advocates, community leaders and members of the public, many of them dressed in pink.
Colombo Mayor Vraie Cally Balthazaar and Dr. Lanka Jayasuriya Dissanayake, Chairperson of the Indira Cancer Trust, attended.
Self-examination was the message
Addressing the gathering, Balthazaar said women often place the needs of their families, professions and communities ahead of their own health, and urged them to prioritise themselves. She said the Council is working through its Suwanariya Clinics to educate women on breast self-examination and early detection.
Dissanayake said breast cancer remains the most commonly diagnosed cancer among women both in Sri Lanka and globally, and described regular breast self-examination as one of the simplest and most effective tools available.
Speakers stressed that the campaign’s message extends beyond a single evening or a single month.
It is the second Colombo landmark lit this month
The Council building follows Dialog Axiata, which illuminated its corporate head office in pink to open the month — also with the Indira Cancer Trust — launching a campaign that offers free monthly SMS reminders for self-examination through its Yeheli.lk platform. The two are separate events within the same awareness programme.
A note on the figures circulating
Statistics on daily breast cancer diagnoses and deaths in Sri Lanka are widely quoted alongside this event, but the NewsFirst report carries no figures at all, and the numbers in circulation do not agree with one another. LankaNewz has not been able to verify any of them against a dated source from this year’s ceremony, and so does not repeat them here. Readers should note that the Colombo Municipal Council illumination is an annual event, and that reports from previous Octobers are easily mistaken for current ones.
Not reported
The report does not say how long the illumination will run, whether other public buildings are taking part, or what the Suwanariya Clinics programme covers in practice. It gives no screening or incidence data, and does not say whether any additional screening services are being offered during October. Ada Derana carried a related breast cancer report the same day, but its site has been returning a CloudFront block to this newsroom for 14 consecutive days and it could not be retrieved. No other verified newsroom appears to have covered the ceremony.
