The need: Childhood cancer in the developing world​

Over 300,000 children worldwide develop cancer each year. If the illness is detected early enough, many of these children can be cured - as many as 80% of children with cancer in the developed world survive. However, in developing countries, survival rates can be as low as 10%. In addition, many children are dying without effective pain relief.

Our solution

World Child Cancer believes inequality in cancer treatment should not exist and that every child, regardless of where they live, should receive the very best possible treatment and care and be able to realise their ambitions and dreams.

We improve diagnosis, treatment and support for children with cancer, and their families, in the developing world. We achieve this via our twinning partnerships between hospitals and healthcare professionals in the developing world and those in the developed world.  We also support treatment costs for the lowest income families, provide ward equipment, fund essential staff posts and, more recently, have started providing holistic care for children and their families.

Our programmes

We currently support children with cancer in Africa, Asia and Central America. We deliver eight programmes of work across nine countries. We work directly in Bangladesh, Cameroon, Ghana, Malawi, Mexico, Myanmar and the Philippines and support a collaborative Wilms' tumour project in sub-Saharan Africa (Cameron, Ghana, Ethiopia, Malawi and Zimbabwe).

The following highlights just the small ways your fundraising will be used:

• £25 funds accurate diagnosis for 10 children in Bangladesh

• £50 pays for life-saving chemotherapy for a child in Ghana

• £100 could support accurate diagnosis for 5 children with cancer in Cameroon

• £200 covers the salary of a nurse on a children's cancer ward in Cameroon for a month

• £300 covers the cost of a play-worker on a children's cancer ward in Myanmar for a year