Every year in Ukraine, around 700 children are diagnosed with cancer. In the past, this sounded like a death sentence. Today, even during wartime, the majority of these children (60–75%) survive. The statistics are still 10–20% worse than in the most developed countries, but significantly better than in 2006, when we first faced this problem.
Twenty years ago, at the Happy Child Foundation, we began supporting the oncology and hematology department of the Zaporizhzhia Regional Children’s Hospital. There were many losses, and every child’s death felt like a personal tragedy. But we saw progress and later started holding a celebration on February 15 for children who overcame cancer. Together with the children, we climbed the Khortytskyi mound — a symbol that the disease can be defeated.
We are glad that for 20 years we have been making our modest contribution to this fight. The main burden is carried by doctors and nurses who stay beside the child for months, sometimes years. Parents also carry an enormous weight: fighting fear while supporting their child.
Foundations and volunteers help families walk this path together: providing medicines when the state does not supply them, purchasing equipment, improving hospital conditions, and organizing celebrations for families. Sometimes a child cannot receive the necessary treatment in Ukraine — then treatment abroad becomes the only chance. Paradoxically, during the war some refugee children received access to high-quality treatment.
It is important to remember scientists as well: scientific breakthroughs have made a disease that was once fatal curable in most cases. Not prayers or “miracle methods,” but the work of researchers.
Since 2020, Ukraine has been performing bone marrow transplants for both children and adults. Thanks to doctors at “Okhmatdyt” and other centers, more than 300 transplants have already been carried out — even during shelling and power outages.
However, saving more lives requires not only funding but also bone marrow donors. The Ukrainian Bone Marrow Donor Registry operates in Ukraine. A person aged 18–35 (sometimes older) can register and save a specific life. This is perhaps one of the most valuable forms of help, even without financial donations. And there is no need to be afraid: the procedure is more similar to blood donation than to surgery.
We wish everyone good health, and for children and their parents — to see that mound ahead of them, the one they will surely climb after recovery.
Support the assistance program for sick children in Zaporizhzhia —
