Voices

Emanuela Dodeva: Bridging Borders for Better Breast Cancer Outcomes in the Balkans

Emanuela Dodeva/LinkedIn

Sep 8, 2025, 15:33

Emanuela Dodeva: Bridging Borders for Better Breast Cancer Outcomes in the Balkans

Emanuela Dodeva, Co-Founder and President of EZRA, shared a post on LinkedIn:

“The Balkan Forum for Breast Cancer took place on 3–4 September 2025 in Tirana, Albania.

We brought together patient advocates, health professionals, and policymakers from across the Balkans with one shared goal: to advance breast cancer care through unity and collaboration.

At the heart of this effort is a simple principle: every patient, whether she lives in Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, Serbia, or any other Balkan country, deserves the same opportunity for early detection, the same quality of treatment, and the same hope for survivorship as any patient globally. Equal access is not a privilege — it is a right.

The Forum addressed the issues that matter most:

Inequalities in diagnosis and treatment — from late detection to unequal access to innovative therapies.
The need for harmonized standards — ensuring equal care and outcomes across the region.
Cross-border cooperation — building patient pathways, shared registries, and aligning with Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan and the EU Mission on Cancer.
Empowering patient organizations — strengthening advocacy capacity and creating a unified regional voice.
Innovation & knowledge sharing — from digital tools and telemedicine to clinical trial access and data exchange.

The signing of the Memorandum of Cross-Border Cooperation between our organizations EZRA – Europa Donna North Macedonia, Europa Donna Albania and Violeta Pirana Women Association fighting Breast Cancer and the launch of the BFBC Platform marked an important milestone — the first steps in turning this vision into reality.

We are deeply grateful to the Western Balkans Fund, whose support made this initiative possible, and to all our sponsors and partners for believing in regional collaboration.

A special thank you to Donjeta Zeqa whose leadership as project lead brought us together in this mission. My thanks also go to our partner organisation, Renesansa, to my own team Liridona Beqiri at EZRA for their commitment, and our external partner Biba Dodeva – Shrepfler.

Special thanks to all participants and speakers, whose insights shaped this Forum:
Tit Albreht, Tanja Spanic, Marzia Zambon, Sara Bojanić, Zoran Stojkovski,Aleksandra Grozdanova, Orges Spahiu, Vesna Ramljak, Helidon Nina, Marsida Mulaj, Brunilda Haxhiu.

This Forum was not the end but the beginning of a regional movement. To harmonise care, improve access, and raise standards across the Balkans. Together, we are proving that borders should never define the quality of care.”