Impact
Shabana's strength saved her daughter's life
Shabana had a difficult life, an unsupportive husband and no proper home. She struggled to make ends meet. Her one-and-a-half-year-old daughter Aliya was her only hope in life.
Her life fell apart when Aliya was diagnosed with Will’s Tumor, a type of kidney cancer that was caused because she was malnourished. Her husband abandoned them when he found out about Aliya.
Shabana was left to take care of her daughter alone. She did not understand the treatment Aliya needed and had no income to provide for her.
Cuddles helped Shabana by enrolling her in the monthly ration program. This program gave Shabana a standard package of rations every month. They also gave meals and nutrition supplements to her daughter in the hospital. This steady supply of nutrition helped Aliya’s treatment work effectively on her body and today she is cancer-free!
Close to 90% of children with cancer who are from poor families are malnourished at diagnosis. Nutrition is key during treatment of cancer. Having proper meals or supplements while being treated gives children the strength needed to undergo the treatment.
Your donation can help parents like Shabana give their children a fighting chance at life. You can give with confidence because every program on our platform is GIVEASSURED. Donate now to provide ration and meals to underprivileged children who suffer from cancer.
By donating to this program
You will be sponsoring the benefits for different beneficiaries every month
About The Program
What the beneficiary gets
Program Description
Cuddles foundation through this program works on providing holistic nutrition to underprivileged children suffering from cancer.
Most cancer affected children from low socioeconomic background are malnourished at diagnosis. We’ve noticed that families that move to other cities for treatment of their children don’t have enough to eat due to financial constraints - they’ve often left their jobs and mortgaged their assets to barely afford treatment and stay in the big city. This affects the child’s daily calorie intake, her ability to fight cancer, and worsens the family’s financial situation. The chances of abandoning treatment are very high without additional support for the family.
Cuddles Ration Program provides a family of four with adequate monthly ration. This ensures that the child is provided with wholesome meals at home, enabling her to fight cancer better. We prioritize families that belong to low-income groups and have come from outstation locations for their child’s treatment.
The families are given monthly ration supplies including flour, rice, all types of dal, oil, spices, salt, seeds, ghee among other essential food items.
Ration baskets are given at the hospitals or through a coupon system tied up with predetermined vendors.
When you donate to this program, you will help provide the much-needed support to families of underprivileged children suffering from cancer.
About The NGO
Cuddles Foundation
Program Updates
Program Updates
28 September, 2020
Be a caregiver and make a difference in the lives of young kids
#4
Be a caregiver and make a difference in the lives of young kids
Childhood cancer is mostly curable. But in India, with up to 40% of children with cancer being severely malnourished at diagnosis, survival is a problem. Our mission is to change that with our FoodHeals Program. Here’s how we do it:
- Place nutritionists in government cancer hospitals- We partner with government hospitals that need nutritional support for a large number of pediatric patients. We carefully select and train a team that has both the heart and the skill to counsel children with cancer nutritionally.
- Provide food aid to patients- We support children and their families with free food and nutrition like nutritional supplements, hot meals, in-meals, eggs, bananas, and monthly ration baskets for a family of four.
- Provide nutritional knowledge to caregivers
Our FoodHeals program is customised to a child’s medical condition to provide holistic nutrition to her until she finishes her treatment at the hospital. It is done as follows-
● Assess: Screening and assessment of the nutritional status of every child seeking treatment for cancer in the hospital ● Diagnose: Identification of treatment complications with nutritional implications ● Prescribe: Nutrition intervention and prescribing a customized diet plan ● Provide: Provision of food and nutrition like nutritional supplements, hot meals, in-meals, eggs, bananas, monthly ration baskets ● Monitor: Continuous nutrition monitoring and reassessment ● Support: Supporting patient families with the knowledge to make healthier food choices
By sponsoring the FoodHeals program, children experience
- Lesser side-effects and treatment complications
- Fewer breaks or delays in treatment
- Improved chances for survival
- Better immunity against infection
- A feeling of being supported and cared for
Whats in a Ration Basket - The ration basket is designed to feed a family of Four and provides food for all-round nutritional support. It consists of 30 less perishable, dry ingredients required by a mother to make a variety of foods for the child. The food products are branded and consist of regional staple cereals, pulses, millets, nuts, seeds, ghee, oil, spices and condiments, salt, jaggery, sugar, and basic personal hygiene products. Along with the staple cereals and pulses, certain other cereals, pulses, and millets that are nutritionally beneficial for the child’s health and relevant to the region she comes from are also included. Like moth beans (matki), nachni, satva, sorghum (jowar) flour for children from the western part of the country; urad dal, nachni, satva from south; and so on.
5 August, 2020
Food heals!
#3
Food heals!
Two new hospitals were catered to in the last quarter BHU Cancer Hospital in Varanasi and SRCC hosital in Mumbai. We continued our projected Ration Distribution to these Children and their families. We also arranged puppet shows during diwali and christmas celebrations for the children in the hospital. During Nov, we were featured in Kaun Banega crorepati with Amitabh Bacchan for Children Fighting cancer. All was going well as planned till March, when we were all hit by the Covid Pandemic. The Covid pandemic at the end of the quarter brought about a bigger need for ration distribution.The initial days saw us discussing on how to tackle this new situation and we quickly got our act together. We have started doing Nutritional counselling on the phone as parents are unable to travel to Hospitals.
22 July, 2019
#2
Program Update
50,000 children are diagnosed with cancer every year in India, of which only 22% make it to hospitals for treatment 40% of the children seeking treatment are malnourished. 90% of the pediatric oncology patients come from a low socio-economic background & 45% of these children come from BPL families. 60% of these children are from the villages and smaller towns and not from the main metropolitan cities. Their parents earn meagre incomes, so they either end up living on footpaths or dharamshalas (shelter homes) 8 out of 10 children of them lose the fight against cancer because of lack of proper nutrition and guidance on nutrition. One of the reasons is that malnourished children are 5 times more likely to develop chemotherapy intolerance leading to refusal or abandonment of treatment, and resulting in death On most days, parents go without all 3 meals and sometimes so do the children. Since most of the families migrate to urban centers seeking treatment for the children, they do not have access to any source of income during treatment. They typically come to the city with meagre savings which get depleted quickly. Hence, they have no means of fulfilling the nutritional requirement of the children which is much needed to complete treatment. To help in this we provide ration to the families who have the cooking facility to ensure that they have one less thing to worry about and focus on ensuring the treatment of the child.
Story from the field
Jay (Name Changed) is a 5.9 years old child diagnosed with Pre B cell ALL and is undergoing Chemotherapy from last five months.
He is an extremely naughty and stubborn boy. Generally, all boys are ‘Mumma’s Boys’ but our Jay wants his father around for everything - from eating food to taking medicines and also for playing or colouring. His father, a farmer has been unable to work for the last 5 months due to Jay’s illness. Jay has an elder sister also.
We at Cuddles are supporting Jay and his family with ration and nutritional supplements.
Initially Jay suffered with lots of side- effects after first chemotherapy and he was unable to hear due to some infection in the ears, mouth ulcers, loose- stools and persistent fever. Everyone was scared but his parents fought a long way and he has improved clinically. With the monthly ration taken care of by us, his family could totally concentrate on Jay and gave him proper nutritious food with the help of counselling of our nutritionists.
Recently Jay was admitted for his 2nd high dose of chemotherapy and this time he completed it without any severe side-effects. He was always seen with his favourite Oranges. He was either seen eating Oranges or clicking pictures with the “Click” of his Orange Peels.
Thanks to Donors like you Children Like Jay have not forgotten to remain naughty and lively all through the treatment. A Big Thanks to YOU
What is the expected total number of beneficiaries in this program for FY18-19? | 5200 |
What is the number of beneficiaries/ benefits provided in this program, Year-To-Date | 5485 |
Village/City/State where project is located | pan india |
Total Budget for the project for FY18-19 | 10746380 |
Total Expenses for the project YTD | 11335365 |
23 May, 2019
#1
Program Update
Whats in a Ration Basket - The ration basket is designed to feed a family of three and provides food for all-round nutritional support. It consists of 30 less perishable, dry ingredients required by a mother to make a variety of foods for her sick child. The food products are branded and consist of regional staple cereals, pulses, millets, nuts and oilseeds, ghee, oil, spices and condiments, salt, jaggery, sugar and basic personal hygiene products. Along with the staple cereals and pulses, certain other cereals, pulses and millets that are nutritionally more beneficial for the child’s health and relevant to the region he comes from are also included. Like moth beans (matki), nachni satva, sorghum (jowar) flour for kids from the west; urad dal, nachni, satva for the south; and so on.
Story from the field
This is the story of a family of a 9-year-old boy, Jaggu, who is diagnosed with Wilm’s Tumor (Kidney tumor). His disease relapsed 6 months back and his family came to Delhi for further investigations and treatment and since his disease is progressive his whole family is residing near the hospital on the footpath in a tent. Jaggu’s father is employed as a labour and is earning Rs. 6,000 per month, mother is a house wife and financially, the family isn’t doing well as the monthly income of the father is not enough to feed 6 members of the family (4 children and parents). When Jaggus’s mother was aware of the ration Program of Cuddles foundation,she thought it to be of no use since she had no cooking facility. But during the counselling sessions, our nutritionists explained the importance of clean home-made cooked food throughout the treatment and the importance of nutrition. Post this the family somehow made an arrangement for the stove in their tent and was enrolled in our ration program as the father’s income wasn’t sufficient to carry out all the treatment related expenses, which included everything from the medicines cost to the food cost. In the last two months Jaggu has gained about 3 kgs in weight. At present his anthropometric measurements are as follows: Height=100.5cm, Weight=14.8kg and MUAC=12.5cm which makes him fall under the category of SAM (Severely Acute Malnutrition). According to Jaggu’s mother, her family now didn't have to worry about the food related expenses. Even though the bundle is meant for 3-4 members of a family. The first thing Jaggu wants to do is “go to school” after he gets cured. he wants to be a “policeman” once he grows up. We are sure that with supporters like you he will achieve his dream. Thanks for stepping in to support his family with ration.
What is the number of beneficiaries/ benefits provided in this program, Year-To-Date | 4050 |
Village/City/State where project is located | Pan India |
Total Budget for the project for FY18-19 | 17160000 |
Total Expenses for the project YTD | 8910000 |