This Friday marks the end of month long campaign by Shikhar Dhawan Foundation in association with The Cuddles Foundation to help beat the cancer in children with proper nutrition. Children who are malnourished cannot tolerate chemotherapy and also the treatment puts them at risk of infections. Those malnourished are at higher risks, thus increasing mortality. Chemotherapy in malnourished children reacts different and can be toxic. This is the challenge that Shikhar Dhawan Foundation & Cuddles Foundation, both nonprofit, seeks to address.
In a country where 50,000 children are diagnosed with cancer every year, several challenges stand in the way of being cured. At present, Cuddles Foundation’s FoodHeals programme bridges the nutrition gap in children with cancer in 35 government and charity hospitals in 20 cities across India. Through this campaign, The Shikhar Dhawan Foundation aims to beat the cancer disease among children with access to the path to better recovery and good health. In future as well, The Shikhar Dhawan Foundation will equip the partnering organizations and children who are cancer patients with all possible supplies of medication and food supplies.
Dr. Kanika Dewan, Director-Impact and Strategy, Shikhar Dhawan Foundation says, “that the Foundation is working relentlessly to fulfill basic requirements of education & health supplies for underprivileged children, and I believe that such good initiatives can actually bring about a change in people’s lives and society. Improving care for children with proper healthy food will prevent thousands of needless deaths in future. A child needs to have proper nutrition and a healthy diet to fight cancer. Moreover, they must be physically strong to endure the pain of radiation and chemotherapy. Unfortunately, about 40 percent of Indian children diagnosed with cancer are malnourished. Moreover, malnourished children are at a greater risk of infections, side effects, complications and treatment delays. We have partnered with the Cuddle foundation & hosted a food heals program with them, where we got a chance to spend some time with cancer survivors and got to know about them and their stories. The campaign was all about beating childhood cancer and we were overwhelmed with this collaboration, as eating well gives you the best feeling for good health and recovery.”
Mr. Amitesh Shah, CEO, Da-One Group, says, “Campaign with The Cuddles foundation was a great success and I would like to congratulate the entire team for the same, we as an organization extended support to parents and children suffering from the disease by providing them with hot meals, dietary supplements, eggs, bananas and a monthly ration for them. We are looking forward to more such projects with Cuddles Foundation in future as well.
Research shows that when children fighting cancer are nourished, their survival rate can go up to 70%. At Cuddles, we want to make sure that every child fighting cancer in India has a chance at a cure. We do this through our nutrition program that is currently active in 35 government and charity cancer hospitals but to make sure that our program reaches more children, we need voices like Shikhar Dhawan’s & support from Shikhar Dhawan Foundation to bring in more support and awareness for the program. We can’t thank him enough for putting our mission out there. Food heals but it needs all of us to take it to children who need it the most!,” says Purnota Dutta Bahl, Founder & CEO, Cuddles Foundation.
