Every day 700 children are diagnosed with cancer. Of the 250 000 children that are diagnosed with cancer each year, about 90 000 of them will lose their lives to the disease.
This year, on the occasion of the International Childhood Cancer day (February 15), CHANCE (CHildrenAgaiNstCancEr) association from Lebanon, a member of CCI (Childhood Cancer International), and all the childhood cancer organizations around the world joined forces in the first global initiative: the Child 4 Child campaign. Dr Roula Farah, CHANCE president explains: "The aim of this initiative is to raise awareness about childhood cancer, the importance of early diagnosis and appropriate treatment and their effect on the prognosis and the survivorship. Cure rates can reach up to 90% in leukemia if the treatment is available to all children equally. CHANCE is proud to be part of this very large international initiative and to have a bigger impact in saving the lives of more and more children"
What is the child 4 child initiative?
Renowned composer Christophe Beck, composer of the Disney movie Frozen, has created a new song for CCI entitled, "We Are One." The website child4child.com features fourteen child singer celebrities from various parts of the world who guided other children on how to participate and record their very own version of the song using their own computers and built-in cameras. To date, around 900 000 videos were uploaded, of which multiple videos from Lebanon featuring celebrities, children with and without cancer, schools and families were included; and more will soon be added. The song will be released on music streaming platforms such as Spotify and iTunes; the chorus of the song contains all voices recorded on the website.
"With the song "We Are One" we wish to honor all children of the world, particularly those in their courageous battle against cancer," says Carmen Auste, the current Chair of CCI and the mother of a childhood cancer survivor.
What did we do in Lebanon?
CHANCE has teamed up with young Lebanese celebrities:
Bruno Tabbal, Cynthya Karam, Maritta Hallani, Omar Dean, and Wissam Saliba, who recorded their own version of the chorus on the website and participated, along with other professional singers and children of different ages, in the Lebanese remix of the chorus of "We are one" including Arabic lyrics in the aim to reach more and more children in the Arabic world.
What is CHANCE?
CHANCE is a non-profit Lebanese organization dedicated since 2002 to the cause of supporting children with cancer and blood disorders whose families are incapable of covering the expenses of their medical treatments and hospitalizations. For the past 13 years, CHANCE has succeeded in curing hundreds of children by covering the cost of over 8000 hospital admissions, as well aschemotherapy and radiotherapy treatments at 5 different hospitals: Saint Georges, Rizk, Abou Jaoude, Sainte Therese and Hotel Dieu.
CHANCE has also succeeded at providing moral and psychological support to these children and their parents in order to ease their ailment, improve their overall well being, and allow them a better chance of cure. CHANCE relies exclusively on volunteer work and donations.
So it's your turn now, to be part of this global initiative and raise your voice against childhood cancer with CHANCE at chid4child.com or any other CCI/CHANCE social media platform.
