Giving Back to Help Children with Cancer: A Personal Story From Ghana

I am Prince Senyo Kwasi Nyamadi and a childhood cancer survivor and it has been my ardent wish to do whatever I can to give something back to children with cancer.

At the age of nine, I was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia (ALL)

My diagnosis was at the Korle-bu Teaching Hospital in Accra, Ghana in 2002. Two years later, I had a relapse because I deferred treatment. I returned to the hospital in the middle of 2004 to start treatment all over again. In 2009 I was declared to be cancer-free after seven years of pain, discomfort, stigmatization, neglect, financial distress, fear of death, frustration, and depression. l am now twenty seven years old, a University graduate and now a Medical Laboratory Scientist.

My Motivation to help other children with cancer is based on three important problems.

1. First and foremost, there is little awareness of childhood cancers in Ghana.
2. Secondly, treatment cost of cancers are not covered by our National Health Insurance Scheme and
3. Last but not the least, I want other children affected by cancer to have the opportunity to achieve their potential in life as I have.

In secondary school, I started awareness creation by giving talks to my classmates and other school mates on childhood cancer.

After I had successfully completed secondary school, I had admission to the university where I co-founded an NGO, Living Dreams Foundation, with a friend in 2014.

My support for cancer patients is as follows

Birthday celebration (CELEBRATECANCERKIDS).

This is an initiative where I and some friends celebrate our birthdays with the children on admission at oncology ward at the Korle-by Teaching Hospital. The aim of this initiative is to ensure the constant interaction between myself and children with cancers, mobilize funds for donation to children with cancers at the ward and Encourage and give hope and help to children with cancers, their parents and relatives.

Blood donation and screening exercise.

As part of the childhood cancer awareness month celebration in September, the foundation carries out blood donation exercises, free screening and consultations for the public. The objective of this exercise is to stock the blood bank of Korle-bu Teaching Hospitalwith blood to help children with cancer, create awareness and educate the public on leukemia and other childhood cancers and provide free medical screening and consultation services for the public at the various malls in Ghana.

Visit and Donation of items to the oncology ward.

I have countless of time visited the Oncology ward to donate food items, toiletries, clothing, books and other materials to children with cancer, on admission at the Korle-bu teaching Hospital. The objective of this exercise is to give moral support and hope to the children on admission and their parents, help meet some of the needs of the children and their families and to help address some of the challenges of the ward by providing logistics needed for the care of the children.

I have some challenges as a survivor

We have scarce resources to embark on most of the activities, reach out to large audience and travel to some rural communities in the country to educate and create awareness on cancer.

I need to constantly solicit for funds for all activities. Getting “true” volunteers to join in the crusade is always a problem due to some that expect something in return. Even though I’m doing my best, there is still a high rate of stigmatization to cancer patients in Ghana, which means there is more work to be done.

Without many resources, it is still possible as a survivor to make a huge impact in the fight to improve access care and outcomes and to help children with cancer anywhere in the world. However, with more funds, we can do so much more.