A nurse for more than 20 years, Bintou has turned to socio-aesthetics to help cancer patients regain their self-confidence through a series of treatments and tools, including making wigs with their own hair.
By Dounia Ben Mohamed
“50% of healing is mental,” says Bintou Doumbia. Medicine now recognizes that beauty care helps to keep morale high and to find the strength to fight illness. Hair and skin are symbols of strength, power, seduction, cultural and social belonging. “Health workers tend to play down self-esteem because they don’t have time. But even five minutes is important! This is Bintou Doumbia’s fight.
As a nurse for 20 years in France, especially in emergency departments, she has seen many patients come and go. Especially cancer victims. “I am a woman who loves her hair, who takes care of it, who often changes her hairstyle. My patients often tell me this. Cancer patients in particular tell me: « I also had beautiful hair before chemotherapy ».
When she sees a 16-year-old girl wearing an inappropriate wig and a sick colleague who refuses to wear the wig offered by her colleagues, she understands. “Those wigs were not suitable. They don’t look like her. Hence the rejection. So, I sat down and asked myself: « What can we do for these cancer patients who didn’t ask for it? I decided to wear wigs from time to time. Not them.”
« If they feel better, they will get better »
She then decided to retrain as a social aesthetician and in 2014 founded the PHAWOP association, which provides care and advice to victims in their quest for self-esteem. “1,500 euros to buy a wig is not accessible to everyone. And what if the wig is not suitable? We, with their consent of course, recover the hair of patients who are victims of the side effects of chemotherapy, and we make wigs that are undetectable to the naked eye, designed by hand, one by one, on a more suitable tulle. They can be kept for life. It takes one and a half months of work. The price, 1,500 euros, is paid not by the patients but by the sponsors. The patients only pay 30%, or 300 to 400 euros, depending on their budget,” she says.
The association, which also looks after the wigs, offers other initiatives along the same lines. “If they feel better, they will get better. In the hospital, 14 needs are identified, including drinking, eating and breathing. If one of these needs is disturbed, we take action. We do the same with the association. In terms of self-esteem. To help people re-appropriate their body, to restore it, with the tools of socio-aesthetics. We also offer patients and their families moments of relaxation and the opportunity to unload their emotional baggage. Returning to active life after a year or more of illness is also important.”
There are two main activities each year: Christmas of the Angels, when Bintou Doumbia’s association goes to hospitals to offer wellness treatments to the nursing staff. And on 8 March, members are invited to a wellness day at the Mama Bally SPA. “We start with a training session on self-care and cervical screening. Then, after the care we give them, they leave with gifts from our partners, Uriage and Orange Money,” says the nurse.” She recalls that “a woman needs 600 euros a month for hair care to alleviate the effects of chemotherapy”.
For more information : https://phawop.com/
