World Cancer Day – 4th February
Today is World Cancer Day and on this day we would like to give a shoutout to Friends of Cancer Patients, UAE, for their effort in making sure that life is easier for cancer patients not just in UAE but throughout the world.
FOCP’s ‘We Can. I Can.’ campaign aims at sending messages of hope, support, and awareness about cancer from the UAE to the world. Through this campaign, FOCP aims to spread the message that as much as cancer patients need monetary support, there are other things that will boost their confidence more that don’t cost anything.
I have had a relative lose their battle against cancer. She was the brightest lady and always had a smile and a kind word for everyone who spoke to her. Hearing her being diagnosed with advanced stage blood cancer was quite a shock to all of us because she never exhibited any symptoms. In spite of the best treatment, she was unable to make it. That’s how silent and dangerous cancer is. If we had detected it earlier, her chances of defeating the disease would have been much higher. We felt so helpless that we couldn’t do anything to help her with her struggle.
If you are one of those people who want to do something to make the lives of cancer patients better but don’t know where to start, FOCP has come out with a beautiful video that tells us how we can help cancer patients in our local community. Small things like challenging perceptions and changing them, making healthy lifestyle choices, improving access to cancer care, leaving out inhibitions and asking for support, shaping policy changes to make it easier for cancer patients to receive care, creating a healthy and friendly environment, speaking out about our doubts and fears, mobilizing our networks to drive progress, and most importantly spreading messages of love and support to everyone who is suffering, can be adopted to help cancer patients fight their worst enemy and to show them that they are not alone in their fight.
Even if we are left alone when we have a normal flu, we feel so vulnerable and look for support. Imagine having to fight the battle of cancer alone. Wouldn’t you want to be there for the sufferers and make them forget about their internal struggles by just being a friend to them? We all know that we have no power over the success of a treatment but we can at least make the journey a little less difficult for them to undergo. You don’t need to go on a global level and make these changes. Start from your community and inspire others to do the same and soon you can implement these changes on a global level too!
Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person. We Can. I Can.
Check out FOCP’s awesome awareness video here: