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Support children suffering from cancer in Belarus |
Do YOU care? ... Don't wait until it's too late!
The suffering which people find the most difficult to accept is that of children.
That's why our association, VISAGE, has chosen to take action in order to bring love and hope to these little ones.
What we are doing in Belarus :
- Financial and material aid for children with cancer in the Belarus State Children’s Hospital and Center for Research in Oncology and Hematology in Minsk.
- Financial and material support for orphanages in Belarus.
- Sponsoring the children.
VIDEO
Belarus is the country most affected by the Chernobyl disaster. Almost 25% of its territory is contaminated by radioactivity – ie the Moguilev and Gomel regions with a population of two million, of which 500 000 are children.
When cancer is diagnosed it is devastating for an adult, but when it is a child it is particularly hard to accept. Every country in the world is affected by this terrible disease but in certain countries the circumstances of cancer-sufferers are really unbearable, particularly when resources are so limited, as is the case in Belarus.
In Belarus, after the Chernobyl disaster, there was an unprecedented increase in the number of cancer sufferers. People who contract the disease are almost always so poor that they cannot afford any treatment. If it is a family where the father is absent, the mother has to give up her job in order to look after her child. Very rapidly these single-parent families end up with no financial ressources. Government help for a child with cancer is only slightly more than twenty-five dollars per month.
In Belarus that amount can only buy, for example, one pair of children’s shoes and three pairs of tights, but a sick child needs medication, food and clothing. Sometimes, in order to treat a child with cancer or a serious blood illness or an immunity problem, huge amounts of money are required. It is impossible, especially for a single person, to raise such money.
In most cases there is no solution to the money problem for the parents of a sick child.
The situation is even worse when the child has no parents.
Today in Belarus 32 889 children are orphans or have been abandoned by their parents, which is, sadly, often the case. Out of ten children brought up in an orphanage, only four have no living parents. Adoption is very rare.
Sick or handicapped children are hardly ever adopted. For them, our help is vital!
We can all imagine the suffering of a seriously sick child, but that suffering is made even worse when the child has no-one in the world to comfort him!
We think these children desperately need our help and our prayers.
Our action at VISAGE is direct : each year we travel to Minsk to visit the children ; the financial and material help goes straight to each child, or to the person who looks after that child.
If each of us contributes a small part of what is necessary, we can do things that will ...
MAKE A DIFFERENCE!
For example:
- obtaining the required medication
- providing children with clothes and shoes
- bringing them pleasure and stimulation through toys and games
- helping parents seeking to care for their children.
If YOU wish to send a gift to Belarusian child victims of cancer, you can use our bank details, specifying for which child or children, or which special need you intend it to be used.
Please note - our association doesn’t have a single paid worker : we are all volunteers. The money is entirely for the benefit of the children.
FACE TO FACE WITH ILLNESS
Usually the mother or a member of the family stays near the sick child. It is true that the children come from far away for a long period in hospital (several months, even years.) Deprived of familiar surroundings, separated from their loved-ones and their friends, hundreds of kilometers away, they fight the illness, going through awful physical trauma. Who could ever replace a mother ? She intimately shares the suffering of her child, she lives through his illness every moment of each day, and her whole being suffers because of her child’s desperate situation.
When a child from an orphanage is taken in to the Cancer Research Center he has to face many difficulties that his non-orphan room-mates are spared. These problems can slow down the healing process. An orphan child who finds himself for the first time among children who benefit from their mother’s presence, from good food and favourite toys, feels isolated and suffers psychologically.
At the orphanage he was surrounded by abandoned children just like him, each of them with the dream of one day having his own mother to love him…In hospital, the difference between a child with parents and one who has grown up in an orphanage is not very noticeable. However, when on the entire ward there is only one orphan, that child feels especially unhappy due to his terrible loneliness. This is just one of the many problems the child has to face in hospital. Later on, this can make a child more vulnerable to specific medical problems.
SEND A GIFT
THE BELARUSIAN STATE PEDIATRIC HOSPITAL AND CENTER FOR RESEARCH IN ONCOLOGY AND HEMATOLOGY
The Pediatric Hospital and Center for Research in Oncology and Hematology in Minsk belongs to the Belarusian Republic Ministry of Health. It was opened in October 1997. The Center is the fruit of collaboration between Belarus and the Austrian humanitarian organization " Hilfswerk ". On each ward a children’s worker is in charge of organizing the children’s leisure activities. The presence of one of the child’s parents throughout the therapy is a tremendous help. The center has a great reputation not only in Belarus but also abroad.
Each year there are 250 new arrivals. At the moment 5000 child victims of cancer are being followed up by the Center. This figure is constantly boosted by increasing numbers of children who live close by the hospital during their convalescence.
Contact : association VISAGE
E-mail: information@1childlifesupport.net
FRANCE
Tel: (+33) 02 99 85 29 47
