An empowerment tour especially designed to help minority women live more healthy, productive and fulfilled lives is making a long-awaited return to Orangeburg-Calhoun Technical College.

Activities, including workshops and a nationally renowned keynote speaker, will take place from 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 28, in the college's Cyber Cafe, with workshops to be held in various sites around the campus.

Women will be able to select from 15 interactive workshop topics, some of which are healthy eating and living with diabetes, gardening and preserving, escaping the cycle of domestic violence, coping with menopause, owning your own business and stress-relievers.

Keynote speaker Ann Nesby, a Grammy-nominated gospel recording artist, will share her story of how she battled back from a multitude of health problems, including high blood pressure, obesity, congestive heart failure, diabetes and arthritis.

Columbia-based IMARA Woman magazine has partnered with Select Health of South Carolina to present its fifth annual Health Ministry Empowerment Tour 2006. Sponsors for this year's event include CW47 Television in Columbia, South Carolina State Housing Finance and Development Authority, State Farm Insurance and the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control.

The six-year-old magazine is a lifestyle and personal-growth publication for women of color. OCtech was first selected as the first of three stops along its empowerment tour in 2004.

"I was trying all different types of diets. My blood pressure was totally out of control. I suffered from congestive heart failure in 2005 and diabetes and arthritis, so that's enough to talk about," said Nesby, who now exercises and is learning how to prepare more healthy meals.

"I feel that if I can be an inspiration to someone that's going through where I've been, it will be an honor. I will tell my life story and share the miracle that God has given me through health. I will learn how to teach others how to stay healthy by declaring how to eat right and have a lifestyle change. I totally welcome that," said Nesby, noting that she will pepper her speech with a few inspirational songs which have meant so much to her as she went through her health crisis.

Door prizes, free diabetes, cholesterol, blood pressure and other health screenings, food and entertainment to include a fashion show and appearances from the United Voices of Christ from South Carolina State University and the youth dance troupe from St. Stephen United Methodist Church in Bowman, all await women at the event.

Registration is free and required.

Select Health of S.C., a Medicaid health plan licensed by the S.C. Department of Insurance since 1996 offers Medicaid benefits and health care to more than 70,000 members in 36 counties through the First Choice insurance plan.

With a four-year partnership with IMARA magazine, Select Health offers free registration for all participants at the IMARA event, which is designed to help minority women adopt healthy lifestyles. Select Health also partnered with local faith and health groups to implement a community-based health initiative called the South Carolina Health Ministry for Women.

Eighty percent of Select Health's membership are children, and Select Health has partnered with the other groups to present these programs in the hope that healthy parents will make for healthier children, says Tracy Pou, Select Health's manager of government relations and corporate communications. Pou said they have focused on rural areas because they have less access to health care, but yet suffer disproportionately from chronic illnesses.

Orangeburg was chosen because of that disparity and how they manifest themselves primarily in the African-American community, said Wendy Brawley, publisher and chief executive officer of IMARA Woman magazine.

Because patients often rush out of the doctor's office without asking questions or for results, screenings will be the essence of the tour, she said. The state nutritionist will whip up heart-healthy foods, discuss portion sizes, preparation and sautéing rather than frying foods such as fish.

Kathy Booker, administrative assistant to OCtech President Dr. Anne Crook, is chairperson of the steering committee for the empowerment tour, which is made up of fremale representatives of the Orangeburg County Department of Social Services; The Regional Medical Center and SCSU.

More than 200 women showed up during the tour in 2004.

"Ann Nesby represents where a lot of us really are," Brawley said. "She had to take some pretty drastic measures to save her life. She is going to talk about that very openly and honestly and why it's important for us to value our health and our bodies."

Brawley is encouraging individuals to register online for the event at www.imarawoman.com by clicking on the "health ministry" logo. She and steering committee member Yolanda Johnson can also be reached for registration forms and more information by calling 803-536-0311.

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

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