Eighty children, suffering from childhood cancer, had a memorable time at a family fun mela, organized by the Children Cancer Hospital (CCH) in Clifton on Sunday to provide them recreational activities and to raise funds for the treatment of children, whose parents could not afford quality treatment of their children. Over 200 male and female volunteers from different schools and colleges of the city had established food and games stalls and helped the CCH administration in highlighting their cause and advocating people to assist in treatment of childhood cancer patients. Held under the auspices of Children Cancer Foundation Trust Pakistan, the event was sponsored and supported by various local and multinational pharmaceutical and oil companies to help generate funds for needy patients. “I have never enjoyed as much in my entire life as I did here as except for the park near our home in Malir, I have never been to any place like this. Here I enjoyed the jumping castle, ate pizza and watched the magic show,” said five-and-a-half-year old Laiba. Laiba is suffering from childhood cancer and is being treated at CCH Karachi like many other children, who seldom visited recreational places for the kids in the city as neither could they afford nor their disease could permit them to take part in normal activities. Another cancer patient, Noman also expressed similar feelings, saying he always wait for such activities, organized by the hospital as CCH regularly holds such activities for the recreation of children under treatment at the hospital. “Every month, the hospital organises such activities and I keenly await such programmes to have fun. Otherwise, most of the time, I have to remain lying or sitting on my hospital bed, undergoing treatment” 13-year old Noman said.
