This week DGWGO met up with Roly Proudlock of Prostate Buddies D&G to find out more about the charity
Roly DGWGO “Well the big news about Prostate Buddies D&G is that we’re back finally after 18 months of waiting and frustration as well for us and for the men who wanted to contact us we’re back. We’re starting again on the 29th of September here at the Dumfries Baptist Church Centre and on the 5th of October at the Creebridge Hotel in Newton Stewart. We’ll all be fully manned and we can’t wait either because we really wanted to get involved and help men out and that’s why we all became buddies in this group and way back in June 2,019 and to be able to come back and offer the service again is amazing. We just really can’t wait. Well you know the the cruel truth of prostate cancer is that one in eight men in the UK will get prostate cancer. That’s undeniably true. And a more stark statistic is that every 45 minutes another man dies of prostate cancer in the UK. That’s not totally preventable probably. But it needn’t be that way if men were more aware of their prostates and the symptoms of prostate cancer. They can be treated early and live a long happy life without having to go through the awful pain of having to be treated for secondary or third cancer.”
Roly continued “It’s just not necessary in many cases and that’s the message that we want to get across as well. Be aware of your prostate. Listen to your body and see your GP right away if you think you have something going on down in the Waterworks area. We make no bones about it. We talk very loudly and long about this because we want men to look after themselves but we are here to help too. Our charity has survived purely because of the generosity of the public and businesses.”
Fundraising
Roly “Every day almost we’re amazed by people coming forward and saying we have raised this money for you. We don’t even know quite often when they’re doing these challenges and fundraising activities. And the incredible thing is that we’ve had the Annandale young farmers walk the length of the UK even when they were locked up at home. We had two cyclists at Southerness rode a thousand miles in a week and raised over eight and a half thousand pounds. This is all money that comes to us and every penny is spent in Dumfries and Galloway.
All of us are voluntary. Nobody gets a wage out of this. Every penny is spent on the task of raising prostate awareness to men who are not yet in the situation where they’ve been diagnosed but mainly to help men who have been diagnosed and are going through the treatment.”
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