Following the death of his elder brother, Isaac Dweben single-handedly founded Cancer Black Care to address the needs of Black people who are affected by cancer. I am from Ghana. My brother Richard died in Ghana of prostate cancer in 1992. I didn't even know he had cancer - he hid the whole thing from us. It was on the last day of his life that we found out he had prostate cancer. At that time, he was confined to a wheelchair.
He was pursuing treatment in Germany and I asked my sister why he was in a wheelchair. You see, it might be embarrassing, very devastating, for Richard, who used to be an ambassador, a very energetic man.
Richard wanted to hide it. He felt that cancer was demeaning. He was a very high-profile, very energetic person, and he felt that if people knew he had cancer, he would lose status. This is common among Black families. People living in Brent [in North London] will come to Hackney [in East London] for counselling because they don't want people in Brent to know.
My background is as an accountant. I read an article in October 1995 in Cancer Link Magazine stating that there is no Black and ethnic minority support group which has emerged to address the needs of members of this community affected by cancer. I said, why should this be? Cancer affects the general population, and my brother died from prostate cancer.
So, I saw that there was a need here. I did not even envisage that I would set up an organisation of this size. I set this group up, meeting with cancer patients. I said, if you are affected by cancer or touched by cancer, come and meet and share your experiences with others who are coping with the disease. That was in October 1995.
In '96, I felt that there was a great need. I wrote an article in the Voice about the group I was setting up, and on my answerphone you could hear about 10 or 15 patients a day wanting to see me. I started visiting them in hospital, in their hospices, and in the community.
I was still working as an accountant. I did these visits during my free time. I even set up the office and paid the rent myself. This forced me to become a part-time accountant because I didn't have time to work full-time. I ran the Cancer Black Care office on a part-time basis. All the expenses, such as providing tea and coffee for the patients, transportation, I paid myself. So I approached Trust for London, which gave me the money for the rent. From 1995 to 1997, I was on my own. I started to give talks at the hospices as well. All the time, I was on my own.
