In July, we are kicking off the second year of Chai for Cancer USA, a fundraising campaign that expands access to treatment for people facing cancer in India. For 6 weeks, South Asia Region Head Viji Venkatesh will travel across the country to meet with our friends and supporters, bringing together our community in support of one of the greatest needs of cancer patients in India: diagnostic testing.
This is an era of great advances in cancer treatment – diagnostic testing brings newfound hope, but the cost is a barrier for those who cannot afford the tests required to benefit from free, life-saving treatment. At $50 (3,000 Rupees) per test, required 4 times a year, this is an impossible expense for most patients and their families. The funds raised by Chai for Cancer USA will ensure patients receive the right treatment at the right time.
We are delighted and grateful to have volunteers hosting chai addas (tea parties) around the country, in California, Arizona, Missouri, Washington DC, North Carolina, Washington, New Jersey, British Columbia, and Ontario to raise awareness about the needs of cancer patients while raising funds for their support. Our sponsor Choice Organic Teas is providing the delicious tea, and our adda hosts are opening their homes and hearts, sharing our mission with their community.
Whether you are near or far, you can support the cause! Raise a cup of chai at home and donate online to support Chai for Cancer USA, or if you are in the Seattle area, join us for The Max Foundation’s Adda on August 12th!
The Max Foundation is a leading global health nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating health equity. For 28 years, Max has pioneered practical, scalable, high-quality solutions to bring life-extending treatments and patient-centered health care to more than 100,000 people living with cancer and critical illness in low- and middle-income countries. Max believes in a world where all people can access high-impact medicines, where geography is not destiny, and where everyone can strive for health with dignity and with hope.
“CANCER” what comes to your mind as you read this six letter word? The five W’s, who, what, when, where and why comes to our head. In my life, who? Was my father, when? 2004, where? In his blood and why? The million dollar question whose answer we are still searching for.
Launched in 2015, Chai for Cancer USA raises funds to provide treatment access for patients in India. The campaign’s inspiration and namesake come from our own Region Head for South Asia, Viji Venkatesh, who started the original Chai for Cancer campaign in India one year earlier. For the past three years, supporters across the United States….
In Latin America, the Maximize Life Campaign has become something like a tradition – a time when each patient organization creates an event or activity of their choice and powers it up for a campaign that takes on a life of its own!
13 patient groups from 11 Latin American countries joined this year’s movement, bringing together patients and caregivers with the purpose of telling the community that cancer is an issue, that ignoring it is not going to make it go away, and that the best approach is to learn about it in order to know what to do about it. From governments to the general public, everybody can get involved in figuring out how to treat cancer patients as members of society and not as a burden.
