The WELLer Network

The WELLer Network has been established in order to significantly reduce the late diagnosis of cancer in young New Zealanders - starting with a breast cancer focus for 2017.

Our founder Jess Weller was diagnosed with an uncommon form of aggressive breast cancer at age 27 - while on her OE in London in 2013.

After having to make huge life decisions and having to learn a lot of information quickly Jess began to see gaps in education regarding the prevention and awareness of cancer - particularly for young people. As a teacher wanted to do something to ensure other young people wouldn't be put in the same predicament as she was.

The WELLer Network was born out of a desire to encourage young New Zealander's to be "WELL", to be more proactive about their health, to understand and be informed about family medical history and to be empowered to know what normal looks and feels like so they can identify what is'nt and are confident to seek support from someone they trust and then medical advice.

Opening up the conversation about a disease that is considered to be the greatest fear of most of the population will help to increase the amount of knowledge that is shared and The WELLer Network aims to connect people to the correct information that will benefit them the most and create long term health behaviour changes to significantly reduce the amounts of those diagnosed through encouraging early detection.

Our values are Truth, Healthy Conversations, Connection and Collaboration so a massive part of getting our messages out to the community is to connect and collaborate with existing organisations, companies and corporates who can offer the platforms to enable us to do this.

We are very focused on encouraging young people to have conversations with their parents and guardians in order to spread our life saving messages as far and wide as possible and want to be able to connect our communities to the right information and support services if there is a diagnosis within their families. With 1 in 3 people in New Zealand directly effected by cancer this is something we are incredibly passionate about.

Our current focus is breast health and we will be launching education programs in New Zealand girls high schools in 2017. We understand that boys are as equally important so our hope is to start the conversation around Testicular Health in the future.

We all have a story to share and in doing so we have the ability to change the thinking of others. This is where the change starts.

We are The WELLer Network - Supporting healthy conversations that can save your life.

The WELLer Network is a NZ registered charitable trust - CC53701.