Our Vision and Mission
Our vision is to see a world where every child with cancer has access to the best possible treatment and care.
Our mission is to improve cancer diagnosis, treatment and palliative care for children across the developing world, redressing the global inequality in the treatment of child cancer. We do this by facilitating and funding international twinning partnerships linking hospitals in developed and developing countries to create a two-way transfer of medical expertise and skills to save lives and reduce suffering.
- We raise awareness of the early symptoms of child cancer to improve diagnosis;
- We improve survival rates through better treatment;
- We increase access to treatment programmes;
- We improve social and practical support for children and their families to encourage completion of the full course of treatment;
- We build capacity in the hospitals in which we work by training healthcare professionals and improving facilities;
- We help to develop long-term sustainability for the child cancer units we work with;
- We optimise the provision of palliative care where a cure is no longer possible;
- We work to raise awareness of the problem of child cancer in low and middle income countries amongst international healthcare funders.
Our work follows the tried and tested model developed by our partner, St Jude Children’s Research Hospital, acclaimed for pioneering life-saving cures for children with cancer in the US. St Jude has been working on outreach projects in Central America since 1998 with very successful results. For example, medics from St Jude worked with doctors at Hospital Bloom in El Salvador and increased survival rates from virtually nil to over 50% and reduced abandonment of treatment from 60% to only 10%.
- We facilitate and develop twinning partnerships in which vital medical expertise is transferred from an experienced paediatric oncology centre in a resource rich country to doctors and nurses in a paediatric oncology unit in a developing country.
- Our medical trustees and parent/patient experts provide advice and guidance on strategic planning, development of treatment protocols & the creation of family support groups.
- We provide seed-funding for each project for five years for drugs and equipment; additional doctors, nurses and support staff; training; facilities; and public awareness campaigns.
- We plan for the long-term sustainability of each programme by identifying new funding sources and leveraging support by demonstrating the impact of funding. In addition, we empower the local parent support group to fundraise locally by offering training and advice.
"Children with cancer in developing countries have not received much attention or support. Other challenges such as HIV/AIDS or tuberculosis have overwhelmed health services. However, many children with cancer can be cured. It costs only £40 to provide the drugs to save a child with Burkitts lymphoma in Malawi. A little money really does go a long way."
Professor Elizabeth Molyneux OBE, Paediatric Consultant, Queen Elizabeth Centre Hospital, Blantyre, Malawi