10,000 Saudi women join hands to break Guinness record for a cause

Some 10,000 women broke the Guinness world record in forming the biggest human ribbon of the universal symbol of breast cancer awareness under the initiative ‘10KSA’ on Saturday.

Wearing pink scarves, the women stood hand-in-hand in the football stadium at Princess Nourah Bint Abdulrahman University at the conclusion of a day-long fair to raise awareness about women’s health.

“Today 10,000 women announce that they believe that holistic health is important for our future as mothers, daughters, and sisters,” the founder of social enterprise Alf Khair, Princess Reema Bint Bandar Bin Sultan Al-Saud, told Saudi Gazette.

“We are the voice of the future, and if we take care of ourselves, there will be a bright future. If we don’t, it will be a very bleak future, and that’s not something I’m willing to see nor are the 1,900 volunteers that participated with us today, not the 53 organizations that supported us nor the 10,000 women that arrived today,” she said.

December 12 also marked the first time Saudi women were allowed to vote and run for public office.

Princess Reema Al-Saud said, “It’s a very proud moment to be a Saudi woman because today we voted and we stood together for something that’s positive for all of us with the support of our whole community. This is a big moment for all of us.”

Dr. Modia Batterjee, co-host of the health awareness fair and cofounder of Albidayah Breastfeeding Resource and Women’s Awareness Center, told Saudi Gazette that their main message is to promote a holistic health wellbeing of women, emphasizing that their overall health is “the basis of society as a whole”.

“We wanted to maintain the fact that women need to understand prevention and health awareness, live a healthy lifestyle, do early detection, eat well, exercise, sleep well, breastfeed, take care of themselves and surround themselves with healthy people,” she added.

Ambassador of 10KSA Hala Aseel, who is a member of Zahra Breast Cancer Cancer Association, said that through the awareness campaign today many people benefited. “I look forward to entering the Guinness Book of Records with 10,000 women!”

Guinness World Records adjudicator Seyda Subasi-Gemici said, “I’m in Riyadh to witness the official Guinness world record attempt for the largest human awareness ribbon which is carried out by the women of Saudi Arabia.”

The record smashed the previous recording belonging to India which involved 6,847 participants.

“In order to qualify for this record, all participants have to wear the same color of clothing so that the overall image from the aerial view is one block of color. In addition to that, all participants have to be in position simultaneously for at least 5 minutes,” Subasi-Gemici explained.

This article first appeared in the Saudi Gazette on Dec. 14, 2015.