THE CONTEXT :

Tata Memorial Centre (TMC) located in Mumbai is one of the largest cancer centres in India. Over 100000 new cancer cases are treated every year in the hospital and approximately 4000 of them are children who are in the 0 (Zero) to 18-year age group. These patients come from all over the country.

Cancer in children is highly curable if diagnosed early and treated appropriately. A large portion of these children come from economically stressed homes. They face a lot of challenges when it comes to treatment, accommodation, food, etc.

Among the biggest challenges faced by these poor children and one of the biggest unmet needs is the provision for good nutritional support during the aggressive treatment of cancer.  

A healthy body is able to fight and ward off cancer. 

THE INITIATIVE :

This campaign of mine is being done in partnership with the NGO -Helping Hands and aims to fight hunger and save lives by supporting the mid-day meal program. This program provides a child-friendly nutritious meal with lots of variety on a daily basis to poor malnourished children. This MDM (Mid-day-meal) is provided from Monday to Friday at the Tata Memorial Hospital's OPD ( Out Patient department). Almost 300-350 children and their parents come here every day for their medicines, radiation, and chemo treatment. Many of them need healthy meals. To complicate things the parents are usually unable to make ends meet financially and good food for the child becomes a challenge.

Providing them with one nutritious and wholesome meal is often the difference when it comes to the child beating cancer.

THE MEAL WILL TRANSFORM LIVES

The Mid-day meal is cooked at the Taj Sats kitchen (associated with TMH catering service) under the guidance of nutritionists in the department of Pediatric Oncology. The distribution of food is managed by the dietician at the department of Pediatric Oncology in coordination with the patient helpline.

* The mid-day meal is served at 12:15 hours from Mon-Friday.

* This works out to about 22 days a month.

* The meal is sufficient for a child and a parent.

* The menu is varied throughout the week.

* Each meal costs INR 180 and has been developed by nutritionists at TMC.

 * Approximately 220 meals are served every day.

* INR 40000 per day is what it takes to run this program.  

* That works out to about INR 9L per month.

* My campaign aim is to raise funds for at least 6 months. 

* That is why the goal is INR 54L.

* Ideally, I would like to raise more than a crore so that we could fund this program for an entire year.

* The total amount needed for a 12-month period is INR 1.08 CR.

IF YOU FUND,

• INR 4000, you help provide 22 meals.

• INR 24000, you help provide 130 meals.

• INR 48000, you help provide 265 meals.

• INR 480000, you help provide 2650 meals.

• INR 960000, you help provide 5300 meals.

All funding has 80G Tax Benefits. 

ABOUT ME AND THIS CAMPAIGN

My name is Luke Coutinho, a holistic lifestyle coach, and integrative and lifestyle medicine based in India. This campaign of mine aims to provide healthy mid-day meals to young cancer patients and help them fight cancer. This is a game-changer as it gives the children a very very good chance of surviving cancer. Without this the situation will be alarming. Am doing this in conjunction with the NGO Helping hands to benefit children at the Tata Memorial Hospital.

I have undertaken this campaign because this is a critical element in the treatment of these children who go through the difficult journey of fighting cancer. Although there are several people and organisations which sponsor the treatment of financially stressed patients, there are very few that help out with an issue that is equally important - "THEIR FOOD AND NUTRITION". This initiative aims to provide mid-day meals to children from extremely poor families.

Children from low-income homes are often malnourished. Malnourished patients respond poorly to medical interventions such as chemotherapy, radiotherapy and/or surgery, with increased episodes of toxicity, interruptions and hospital admissions and inability to take timely chemotherapy in full dose leading to a poor response to treatment. Overall, malnutrition increases the rate of abandonment of therapy and doubles the risk of death due to cancer. 

Every small contribution makes a difference, so please support this campaign and share it on social media. This dramatically also improves recovery rates as nutrition is critical for recovery. An amount of approximately INR 50000 for example is what it takes to provide a mid-day meal to a child and a parent for a entire year.

Please support my campaign and let us together save lives.

ABOUT THE TATA MEMORIAL HOSPITAL (TMH) :

The Tata Memorial Hospital is situated in Parel, Mumbai. Also popularly known as TMH, it is a specialist cancer treatment and research centre, closely associated with the Advanced Centre for Treatment, Research and Education in Cancer (ACTREC). The centre is the national comprehensive cancer centre for the prevention, treatment, education and research in cancer and is recognised as one of the leading cancer centres in this part of the world. It is an autonomous body funded and controlled by Department of Atomic Energy, Government of India which also oversees the administration of institute since 1962.

The Tata Memorial Hospital was initially commissioned by the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust on 28 February 1941 as a centre with enduring value and a mission for concern for the Indian people. The current Director of the hospital is Dr. Rajendra A Badwe, who took over from Dr. K. A. Dinshaw.

THE LOCATION MAP :

ABOUT THE NGO : 

The Helping Hands Foundation is a non-profit organisation based out of Mumbai that focuses on the cause of Pediatric Cancer. We work closely with the Tata Memorial Hospital Pediatrics wing in Mumbai for several projects. The end objective is to provide need-based in saving the lives of children.

The current initiative aims to support and provide mid-day meals to hundreds of children who come to Tata Memorial Hospital every day for their treatment. We also work on three other projects – the Accommodation Project and the Survivor Project which includes Prosthetics and the Emergency Treatment Project The Accommodation Project provides free accommodation to the below poverty line families whose child has been diagnosed with cancer during treatment. They stay in Dharamshalas close to the hospital and the Survivor Project works towards regular testing and rehabilitation of children who beat cancer. We raise funds for Prosthetics which are the last step in them being wholeheartedly accepted in society as productive citizens. Emergency Treatment provides the parents with speed money to start treatment and bridges the gap. 

The Helping Hands Foundation is an NGO and works in conjunction with the Tata Memorial Hospital’s ImPaCCT Foundation.

TAX BENEFITS

Funding for this campaign is eligible for tax breaks as Helping Hands is a registered trust and you can avail of benefits under section 80G of the IT act. Foreign funding is NOT accepted.