Endofound’s Sixth Annual Medical Conference: Ending Endometriosis Starts at the Beginning
Obviously we are really thrilled with Endofound by the success of the ENPOWR Project has shown and we wanted to bring you here to celebrate a little bit with us today. Up next we are going to have one of our co-founders whom I am sure you all know, Padma Lakshmi, come up and talk a little bit more about that and help celebrate some of the successes of the network that Jenny mentioned and Senator Jeff Klein that helped us be there today. Here’s Padma.
Good afternoon and thank you all for being here. I am very excited to see this room so full. We have been doing this medical conference for several years now as well as our nurses’ conference and patients’ day. It is really wonderful to see so many people who are interested about finding out about the disease or helping others to find out about the disease and spreading the word. It is wonderful to see everyone come together in this way and I invite you to follow on our website the whole program if you cannot be here for it.
I am here to speak about our very first ENPWR Project award. We are giving it to two different entities; one is the Young Women’s Leadership Network, and the other one is Senator Jeffrey Klein. Both of these are very, very deserving and we cannot be more thrilled not only to have their partnership but to recognize their immense help in growing this wonderful program that you have been hearing so much about.
When I was in high school and college I had a lot of problems because of endometriosis and it really affected not only my education and my social life, and of course my health, my physical and mental health, it also really affected by self-esteem as a young woman. Because this disease is so deep and develops in a female body, part and parcel with her womanhood, with puberty, it is very important that we understand all of the ramifications and address all of the ways that this disease affects a young person’s life as well as everyone around her and those who depend on her.
To that effect, I think the Young Women’s Leadership Network is doing exactly this. Even before they ever started talking about endometriosis, this is a wonderful, wonderful organization. I wish I had had an organization like this when I was growing up. Reading about who they were and finding out all of the wonderful things they do in the same sex secondary schools in the New York area they say that they are interested in empowering the whole girl. What a wonderful thing for an educational institution to say. Because that is what we have been saying about endometriosis too, that it affects the whole human being and everyone around her.
It is with utmost pleasure that I give our first ENPOWR award to the Young Women’s Leadership Network. I want to thank these three women and everyone associated with your organization for helping us. We could not have done all of the work that we have done without your help. We look forward to a continued and long, long relationship with your organization. We applaud everything that you are about.
Good afternoon everyone and thank you so much for such wonderful words. My name is Ms. L…and I work on the girl’s education team at the Young Women’s Leadership Network. We, as an organization, support two programs, life changing programs; the first one is the Young Women’s Leadership Schools. That supports five 6 through 12 public girls’ schools in our New York city schools and the five boroughs and also the college bound initiative that places college counselors in 24 city schools in New York. They are co-ed schools. We are so grateful and so happy and humble to be the first honorees in the first ENPOWR award. We really hope that our partnership continues and that we can take your program to our co-ed schools as well as to our other girls’ schools in New York.
I have here two girls that are from TYWLS of Queens and they have received the education from the ENPOWR Project and they are here to talk a little bit about what they have learned and why it has been so powerful for them to learn about endometriosis and to be empowered to continue the message along. Let me introduce Barbara Neil Kelly and Asmi Laul.
Hello, hi I am Barbara and I am in the 11th grade. When the Endometriosis Foundation came to my school I had no idea how to pronounce the name, like what it was. It was like so abnormal for me and then when I found out what it really was I thought “wow, this is really interesting” and thought like I could be the one to help spread it around and thought that was really cool.
Hi, my name is Asmi Laul and I am in the 10th grade. First off, I would like to thank the two wonderful women who came to the Young Women’s Leadership school of Queens and took their time and effort to educate us about this disorder that not many people have heard or even know about.
After being in a session about endometriosis with these two knowledgeable women I have learned many important and interesting facts about this disorder. I learned that endometriosis is a disorder where the tissues that line your uterus are growing outside of your uterus. This disorder can occur in any woman or girl but it mostly occurs in women who are in their 30s or 40s. When having endometriosis the tissues start to thicken, break down and bleed during each menstrual cycle, therefore becoming trapped. This is a really painful situation to endure if you come to think about it because women get really bad cramps and really bad painful periods and sometimes they also feel bloated.
One fact that really struck me as interesting was that these tissues can block your fallopian tubes, grow into your ovaries and then the trapped blood in your ovaries can form into cysts. Once these cysts are formed it becomes very hard to become pregnant.
Once again thank you for this educational lecture, awareness and the phenomenal opportunity that has been given to us.
Thank you all and congratulations.
