Hyderabad, October 29th, 2020: City based Grace Cancer Foundation hosted the World’s largest Cancer Awareness initiative, 'Grace Cancer Run' with over a lakh participants from 115 plus countries , taking part, virtually on October 10th 2020. The Run and its organiser, Grace Cancer Foundation, won accolades from across the globe, from Institutions and individuals alike, for hosting and participation in the mammoth cancer aware initiative from across continents. The Grace Cancer Run, the largest cancer awareness global drive, also caught the attention of the World’s official chronicler of records and achievements, the prestigious Guinness World Records and recognised Grace Cancer Foundation on two counts for titles. The Records acknowledged by Guinness World Records are for accruing ‘Most live viewers for a female health awareness lesson on YouTube as part of Cancer Awareness Drive’ and for ‘Most videos of people running/ jogging uploaded to Facebook in one hour as part of Cancer Awareness Drive’, Cancer which incidentally had over 5000 videos uploaded in support of the awareness.
The illustrious recognitions were announced and formally bestowed on Grace Cancer Foundation by Mr Rishi Nath, Adjudicator; Mr Swapnil Dangarikar, Official Adjudicator and Ms Sonia Chadha Nihal, Commercial Account Manager - APAC & India, Guinness World Records™, at a Virtual event, today. Also present on the occasion were Dr Chinnababu Sunkavalli, CEO, Grace Cancer Foundation; Dr Hari Prasad, President, Apollo Hospitals Group; Dr Sathya Kalangi, Executive Director, Collective Power of One International - a Global outreach to improve health through education and community development in emerging societies; and Mr Y Subramanyam, Regional CEO, Apollo Hospitals, Hyderabad.
A dream of creating Cancer awareness conceived seven years ago has achieved unprecedented success and well beyond our imagination. What we accomplished with over a lakh participants in 115+ countries is huge and overwhelming and are enormously gratified with the fact that we could reach out and sensitize millions across the globe. The icing on the cake is the prestigious Guinness World Record, crowning our effort. I am humbled by Guinness acknowledging and presenting two Titles for our feats, says Dr Chinnababu Sunkavalli.
It is truly momentous for Apollo Hospitals Group to be part of a Guinness World Record, that too for a cause very close to our heart - cancer awareness, early detection and prevention. As Apollo Hospitals Group, Chairman Dr. Prathap Reddy always says, Indian medical fraternity will be the guardians of global healthcare, this initiative has taken us a step closer to that dream. The message on healthy living from the Grace Cancer Run is reckoning across the globe and the world is awakening to Indian medical prowess, says Dr Hari Prasad. Though COVID is occupying the major mindshare of the world, one must acknowledge that more number of people died because of Cancer than because of COVID. Not much is being talked about cancer, though it is preventable and completely curable when diagnosed and treated early, deaths due to cancer can be brought down significantly provided enough awareness is built. Apollo is extremely delighted to be associated with the largest cancer awareness initiative in the world and this provides the impetus for a bigger awareness campaign against cancer. It is a privilege to be associated with a noble and important cause.
Mr Rishi Nath said, the record is for female health awareness lesson video online, we had laid down some strict guidelines to match the standards of Guinness World Records. It was a 30 minutes lesson and was measured for the most number of concurrent viewers at one point of time, so the maximum viewers at one time present online would contribute to the record and result. The result was 2928, wonderful record, a new Guinness World Record has been set and the record title is ‘Most live viewers for a female health awareness lesson on YouTube was 2928’ and was achieved by Grace Cancer Foundation, India; Collective Power of One International, America; Apollo Hospitals and AP Police.
Mr Swapnil Dangarikar said, I am presenting the second attempt you did for most videos of people running, jogging and uploaded it on Facebook in one hour. It may seem a simple task to upload the video and be a part of the record, but I know how difficult this has been to verify and come up with the numbers, its been so difficult that we have not yet finished the entire process of finalising the numbers, because the response you received was tremendous, which kind of crashed the Facebook page and we were not able to see the actual videos that were posted. After a lot of trials we were able to look at some numbers. There were lot of stringent guidelines to be followed and those participants who qualified were actually considered for the record and at the moment we have more than 500 successful participants, which means you have set your second Guinness World Record. As we are still counting, we might be able to give you a bigger number.
The Grace Cancer Virtual Run, which evoked unprecedented response and participation, was a joint initiative of Grace Cancer Foundation; Apollo Hospitals, Collective Power of One International (CPOI) and AP Police, to raise awareness about breast cancer and hosted in October to commemorate the World Breast Cancer Awareness month. The theme of this third edition of the Run was, 'Beat Cancer, Beyond Covid 19.'
Winning the recognition of Guinness World Record is a humongous accomplishment and that too two titles for an effort is truly laudable. I was always sure of this initiative going places, knowing the passion of Dr Chinnababu towards it. I congratulate Grace Cancer Foundation, Dr Chinnababu and his team for enlightening the world on the ill-effects of Cancer and bringing laurels to the country with the recognition, says Dr Sathya Kalangi.
The record number of views on YouTube and the maximum video posts on Facebook, enabled us to multiply the reach of cancer awareness message, manifold. Guinness World Record recognizing the initiative is heartwarming and that so many more across the globe benefitted from it, is utmost satisfying, we are confident of this having a ripple effect and reining in the incidence of cancers, says Mr Y Subramanyam.
Grace Cancer Foundation is committed to reducing the burden of cancer in society. COVID-19 has placed an unbearable burden on people and they were neglecting diagnosis and treatment of cancer. Grace Cancer Foundation brought the focus back on cancer with the third edition of its run, with the theme, Beat Cancer Beyond COVID 19. They focused on creating awareness at the grass root level in India and abroad. The enrolment of Navodaya Schools and the AP State police in the program helped to create wide-spread awareness for the program in India. In addition to India, 115 nations participated in the run.
The foundation gave a huge momentum to this exercise with specially designed content. They uploaded 111 videos with a total reach of more than 800,000 screens. The reach through Facebook and Instagram was more than 467,000 and 276,000 respectively. In addition, they had Facebook live sessions, every Sunday evening through the month of September and responded to question of the affected population.
Collectively all these efforts caught the imagination of the people leading to tremendous participation which positioned the Foundation for the recognition from the Guinness Book of World Records.
The organisers leveraged modern technology and social media to create mass awareness, mass participation and create a people to people connection. The run itself was virtual with participants running alone in open areas, with complete safety precautions. They then uploaded these videos, creating awareness and motivation for other participants, adds Dr Chinnababu Sunkavalli.
