Over 10,000 women ran at the Pinkathon creating awareness on Breast Cancer in the City on Sunday.
Avid barefoot runner and Pinkathon founder Milind Soman flagged off the third edition of the SBI Pinkathon – Empowering Indian Women at the Kanteerava Stadium. The participants could chose from a range of distances to run – three km, five km, ten km and 21 km.
B Dayananda, Traffic Police Commissioner and Rajni Mishra, CGM, IHO from SBI also took part in the event.
Arjuna Awardee Shantha Rangaswamy, international athlete and Arjuna awardee Reeth Abraham, Deveika Bhojwani, Playback singer Supriya Raghunandan, flautist Pandit Pravin Godkhindi, actors Bharathi Vishnuvardhan, Priyanka Upendra and Nikita Tukral, Vinayak Joshi, noted theatre personality Arundhati Nag, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Divya Spandana and former international athlete Ashwini Nachappa ran in support of the cause. Even women with new born children were seen running with their baby strapped to their backs.
A group of 20 cancer survivors and 30 visually impaired girls as well as a group of 20 hearing and speech impaired girls participated in the various categories. The marathon saw participants as young as three years and as old as 75 years.
Speaking on the occasion, Milind Soman said, “It is the beginning of a movement carried forward by a growing community of empowered women across India, who share a belief that a healthy family, a healthy nation and a healthy world begins with empowered women.
The first step in empowerment is taking control of your own health, respecting yourself and understanding and celebrating the value you bring to your family and society.”
Reema Sanghavi, Managing Director, Maximus MICE and Media Solutions Private Ltd and Co-founder Pinkathon said, “Pinkathon will be organized in eight cities across India including Guwahati and Kashmir. I am simply overwhelmed with the tremendous response in Mumbai and this will certainly motivate us to do much more going forward.”
Pinkathon has donated more than Rs 45 lakhs so far towards the treatment of underprivileged women with cancer.
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