DENMARK - An empowerment tour especially designed to help minority women live healthier, more productive lives is heading to Voorhees College in Denmark.

Activities, including workshops and a nationally renowned keynote speaker, will take place from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 20, in the college's Leonard Dawson Health and Human Resources Center, with workshops to be held in various on-campus sites.

Women will be able to select from 17 interactive workshop topics, some of which include healthy eating and living with diabetes, gardening, stress relievers, money and debt management, owning a house and coping with menopause.

Keynote speaker Dr. Tonea Stewart, an award-winning actress, international motivational speaker and university professor, will share the importance of education, self-esteem and healthy lifestyles.

Columbia-based IMARA Woman magazine has partnered with Select Health of South Carolina to present its sixth annual Health Ministry Empowerment Tour 2007. Sponsors for this year's event include CW47 Television in Columbia, Providence Heart Institute, South Carolina Community Bank and the state Department of Health and Environmental Control. South Carolina State Housing Finance & Development Authority and Voorhees College are participating agencies.

The seven-year-old magazine is a lifestyle and personal-growth publication for minority women. Voorhees College was selected as one of three stops along its empowerment tour this year.

"We were very pleased to be asked to host this tour. I think it ties in perfectly with some of the initiatives we have going on on campus," said Dr. F. Perna Carter, vice president for institutional advancement at Voorhees College and chairperson of the event's local steering committee. "We recently opened our Rural Health Center, which contains the Center of Excellence for Rural and Minority Health. We have a Healthy Campus Initiative and, in the health center, we have members from DHEC and the (Orangeburg-based) Family Health Center also has a practice out there."

SCDHEC has reported that Bamberg County suffers disproportionately from chronic health conditions, such as obesity, diabetes and heart disease. There is also a lack of access to ongoing preventive health resources for many residents in the rural area.

"We think that this initiative would be excellent to help participants make those types of life-changing choices that will actually extend their life spans and improve their quality of life," Carter said.

Door prizes, food, entertainment, a fashion show and free diabetes, cholesterol, blood pressure and other health screenings await women at the event. Registration is free and required.

Select Health of S.C. is a managed care organization licensed by the state Department of Insurance. Serving families since 1996, First Choice is the organization's insurance plan, which offers enhanced Medicaid benefits and accessible care to more than 76,000 members in 37 counties. With its partnership with IMARA magazine, Select Health offers free registration to all participants of the IMARA event.

"The Health Ministry Empowerment Tour is important because it allows us to reach rural communities, where we see the greatest need for health information and quality of life resources," said Tracy Pou, Select Health's director of communications.

Wendy Brawley, publisher and chief executive officer of IMARA Woman magazine, said the empowerment tour has grown over the years. There were 966 women who attended last year's empowerment tour.

Brawley said she is also particularly excited about this year's new workshop sessions, which include parenting the hip-hop generation, wardrobing with 10 basic pieces, aging and faithfully fit.

"There were a lot of churches who were searching for ways improve the health of their membership, so what we've done is try to help churches build health ministry programs," Brawley said. "IMARA is a magazine designed to empower, and we're hoping that we actually focus on our magazine's purpose with these sessions this year."

Robert Coaxum, director of the S.C. Integrated Data System, will also be on hand to share local health statistics with participants, including the number of heart attacks and people with kidney disease located within a mile radius of the city of Denmark. Coaxum is also scheduled to share data on health disparities and other health community health issues.

Individuals can register online for the event at www.imarawoman.com by clicking on the "health ministry" logo or by calling the magazine's office at 803-252-0647. Completed registration forms can also be mailed to: IMARA Woman Magazine, P.O. Box 11321, Columbia, SC 29211.

T&D Staff Writer Dionne Gleaton can be reached by e-mail at dgleaton@timesanddemocrat.com or by telephone at 803-533-5534. Discuss this and other stories online at TheTandD.com.

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