Bermuda Cancer and Health Centre volunteer Jan Fraser has encouraged breast cancer survivors to speak up and tell their story since she moved to the Island three years ago.Her efforts were acknowledged with a community service award from Bermuda CableVision this month. Ms Fraser and two other Bermuda Cancer and Health volunteers, Audrey Morbey and Renee Carter, were honoured for their work with the charity.Ms Fraser received recognition for her work organising a ‘pink mile’ portion of the annual breast cancer walk. This part of the walk encourages breast cancer survivors to don a different coloured shirt from other walkers so they stand out.After the walk, breast cancer survivors talk onstage about their experiences with breast cancer.A lot of breast cancer survivors tell her they are too shy to share their experiences. It’s something Ms Fraser understands she suffered from intense shyness and, as a young girl, was usually found hiding behind a plant during social functions.Today she’s a professional public speaker.Her interest started when she was a teenager growing up in Dayton, Ohio. She was invited to a youth conference that involved many girls from out of town but couldn’t get up the courage to go inside. She went back home instead. Her older sister, Bonnie, gave her some life-changing advice.“She said ‘I want you to go back down there Jan’,” said Ms Fraser. “She said, ‘I don’t want you to think about yourself, what you look like or what you are wearing’.“We didn’t have the best clothes. We were lower middle class. I knew the girls in that social hall would be dressed to the nines. My self-esteem was not there. She said ‘Jan, you are going to find out that people love to be welcomed. They love to be celebrated and they will just eat that up’.”Reluctantly, the young Ms Fraser went back to the conference, walked up to the first girl she saw and shook her hand vigorously, saying, ‘welcome to Dayton, Ohio, I’m on the welcoming committee’.There wasn’t really any committee, but miraculously the trick worked, and Ms Fraser had an instant friend.“I’ve been on a one-woman welcoming committee ever since,” said Ms Fraser, who also teaches public speaking and is the author of five books.She runs a self-empowerment club in Bermuda for women called Dream, Dare, Dance. She is also organising a Dream Big Conference for Women this Saturday.The conference will feature nine speakers in the areas of personal and professional development and health. Funds from the conference will go to PALS cancer care charity.“Today, if I go to speak at a conference, I get there early and shake hands with all the people I meet,” said Ms Fraser.“At the Dream Big conference I will be meeting and greeting people because I know there will be people shy and sensitive about coming to an event. I think it always helps. Other people really build our self-esteem when they allow us to be celebrated. I hope we build the survivors’ self-esteem with [the Bermuda Cancer and Health breast cancer walk]. It is a celebration of the courageous spirit that they have.”She was inspired to create the pink mile portion of the walk after noting its presence in the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer in the United States.“At the end of the walk it is extremely moving to have the survivors wearing a different colour pink shirt and we cordon them in between us in what we call the pink mile,” she said. “There are 2,000 walkers there. When we line up around our survivors in the centre they feel loved and supported. “When I came to Bermuda in 2007 and participated in the breast cancer walk on the Island, I realised that everyone just went home after the walk.“There wasn’t anything to stay in the park for. I was introduced to the Bermuda Cancer and Health Centre folks. We started the pink mile portion in 2008.”She said it gives a lot of hope to women battling breast cancer to hear stories of survivors they know. The survivors who speak out also encourage other women to get their mammograms, because the earlier breast cancer is detected, the better the chances for survival. “They are saving lives,” said Ms Fraser.Ms Fraser’s mother, Sadie Fraser, was a long-time breast cancer survivor. She died recently from Alzheimers in California. The registered nurse was a great inspiration for Ms Fraser.“She beat breast cancer,” said Ms Fraser. “I write about her in my book ‘You Are Never Too Old To Dream, Dare, Dance’. I write about how she defeated it. I was also inspired by her because she was a career woman at a time when few women were. When she was a young woman, most girls didn’t have jobs. Women were supposed to get married and have kids. Not that that is a bad thing, but in those days it was the only thing. She surprised her father by saying she wanted to go to nursing training.”Ms Fraser’s grandfather baulked at the idea, but her mother went to school anyway and became a registered nurse. Then one day Ms Fraser’s grandfather broke his leg and needed a home care nurse.“He was such a private person, so he said, ‘my Sadie is a nurse. She could come’. So my mother said it was the sweetest day of her life when her father called and said ‘I need you as a nurse’. She never made him feel bad about it. So he said to her, ‘Sadie, you were right, women do need a skill’.”Ms Fraser first came to Bermuda in 2007 to speak at a conference. She fell in love with the Island she was only supposed to stay for a day but stayed for a week. In 2008, she married Bermudian Ian Coles and decided to stay forever.The Dream Big conference will be held at the Christ Church in Warwick on Saturday from 10am to 4pm. Tickets are $50 and available from PALS, Dream Club members, or Bermudatix.bm. There will be networking, a light lunch, a silent auction, music and afternoon tea. For more information call PALS on 236-7257 between 9am and 5pm or 236-5402 until 9pm.