On September 20, 2019, the first-ever World Gynecologic Oncology Awareness Day (World GO Day) was launched with the slogan “GOfor…Awareness, Action, Hope, Life”.
That first World GO Day focused on raising awareness and highlighting the risk factors, symptoms, early detection, and prevention strategies related to the main types of gynecological cancers that impact women: cervical, ovarian, uterine, vaginal, and vulvar.
Women were invited to learn more about the symptoms and risk of gynecological cancers, to spread this awareness to their networks, and to act by planning a visit to their doctor. #GOfor became the official hashtag of World GO Day and remained for the following years.
That year, 33 patient advocacy groups from 22 countries in Europe and Asia joined the celebrations with sporting events: games involving caregivers, health workers, survivors, and supporters were organized. The activities produced a tide of photos that flooded ENGAGe’s social media pages. In addition to those sporting events, a list of other initiatives was organized in each country, going from meetings between doctors and patients, to scientific workshops on gynecological cancers, to gynecological cancer information points in hospitals.
All these activities produced an impressive number of contacts, a good result considering this was the first World GO Day. The social media campaigns on the Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram pages produced a total of 20,000,000 impressions, a total reach of 16,000,000, and coverage on 23 traditional media channels. A good beginning!