OVERSEAS DONATIONS

Project for gaining International Funds

The Mexican Association for Aid for Children with Cancer (Asociación Mexicana de Ayuda a Niños con Cáncer, IAP Original acronym: AMANC), is nonprofit organization association pioneer in Mexico for assisting and support children and adolescents with cancer. It was founded June 15th, 1982. It has successful pressing in 22 state branches with one shared goal: providing comprehension accompaniment for youngsters in their oncological treatment: lodging, meals, daily transportation to the hospital for treatment, medication bank, emotional support, among other activities. It promotes the early detection of cancer for accurate diagnosis and helps the inclusion of patients, survivors, and resistance and resilient families.

About AMANC

AMANC, IAP is the pioneering is nonprofit organization in Mexico dedicated to help children and teenagers with cancer and their families. It was founded in June 15th, 1982. Through the AMANC SYSTEM (SISTEMA AMANC). This organization offers support services for pediatric oncological treatments, such as lodging, food, transportation, access to medication, emotional support, among others. It also promotes early cancer detection and encourages inclusivity for patients, survivors and family members alike.

Programs Goals

To create health promoting programs in marginalized communities that will help facilitate.

1. Analyzing the Issue

The cancer mortality rates among children continues to be on the rise due to diagnostic delays, and each year we see from 7, 000 to 7, 500 new childhood cancer cases arise (data taken from the National Institute of Cancer- original name “Instituto Nacional de Cancerología” or acronym INCAN); it is for this reason that AMANC, with its 38 years of experience, is working hard to perfect the necessary tools to detect early symptoms and make them accessible to the population, enabling families to turn to the closest medical centers.

On the other hand, our country’s healthcare sector does not offer sufficient aid to highly marginalized population sectors, those without access to any medical services, and generally far from urban centers.

2. Who this would benefit?

Children and teenagers with cancer who come from marginalized sectors.

AMANC’s services allow these low-income families to make use of the association’s resources, facilitating cancer treatments and treating all members with dignity and empathy. The goal is for parents to make use of their time, especially the mothers, during their children’s treatments, and along with the work of psychologists and social workers, develop the necessary tools to become health promoters, helping their communities prevent cancer.

3. Where can this population be found?

Generally, these families come from remote areas, from different parts of the country. For the most part, these mothers’ profiles are young women between 25 and 46 years of age, unemployed or earning less than minimum salary. Many of them don’t have husbands or have been abandoned by their spouse or partner after their child’s diagnosis. A confirmed cancer diagnosis is often the reason for couples separating, for abandonment and for despair.

4. Work hypothesis

The main hypothesis is that in these crucial moments in the mothers’ lives, and that of their children, help them face their own strengths and weaknesses; they are forced to change rolls, to accept help, to learn from other women who are going through the same situation, and forge bonds of friendship, which will ultimately make them stronger. Besides, it is a learning curve in which they are able to intensely share their time with their children. It is the mother who becomes the main livelihood and who generally takes care of the child, while still being the core of the family unit, taking care of the children and their home.

It is during this period of fear and pain that this project internees with the mothers must be strengthened, so they can manage their emotions, and thus learn to create a better quality of life and adapt to the disease.

This is the moment where leadership qualities arise in these women, when they take charge in order to define a better quality of life, upon learning how to contain the rupture of their world, the anguish of the future, and the appropriate way to manage their family dynamic.

5. First goals and objectives

The first phase of this pilot with mothers of children with cancer will be through group therapy as well as individual sessions. This will allow them to develop their independence while fortifying healthy habits in order to face cancer, as well as develop leadership skills upon learning how to better relate with those diagnosed with cancer, and with other mothers in similar circumstances. Some of the subjects covered in these workshops would be healthy eating habits, hygiene, values, life skills and different types of cancer.

AMANC’s mission will be to put together these groups of health promoters, through therapy workshops and courses with professional staff members who will help them understand the disease, how to identify early signs of danger, how to treat these symptoms, and highlight the importance of getting immediate medical attention from the medical centers closest to their communities. They will be offered the possibility to receive refresher courses, which will secure their work as community health promoters.

The long-term goal is for these promoters to not only be able to detect childhood cancer, but also increase their own knowledge to take on other disease symptoms prevalent in their communities. After completing their workshops and their children’s initial treatment, they will be offered a scholarship which will help them improve their quality of life, as well as serve as an incentive to continue their work as a health promoter within their community.

The long-term idea is that these promoters not only detect childhood cancer, but also expand their knowledge to cover other symptoms of diseases that prevail in their areas. In this way, healthy communities will be created, generating eating habits, and encouraging sports as part of a full life to which they are entitled.

6. Where does the money go?

Through a careful methodology designed to create the appropriate filters in order to detect mothers with leadership qualities, proceedings will go to training programs, with professional teachers like psychiatric oncologists, social workers, nutritionists, sociologists, and clinical psychologists, most of who specialize in female empowerment programs, always remembering that a well-educated mother is an active mother.

Specialized educational materials will be designed and distributed, complimentary to the “Good Health Begins at Home” and “Life Skills” programs being offered.

Operational costs of these materials offered to the mothers, along with a Community Health Promoter certificate; plus, they will receive scholarships that will allow them to continue to dedicate themselves to this work as health promoters, once they have returned to their communities.

Periodic implementation costs within their community.

Scheduling workshops in urban areas closer to these promoters’ homes so doctors and nurses can continue their training and so encourage networking among more women as they see fit.

Workshop programs with various specialists
Educational materials
Educational materials for the health promoting mothers
Operational costs of said materials
Computers and Technical material for field work
Certificates for the health promoting mothers
Support scholarships for the health promoting mothers in their communities
Implementation costs
Training workshops for health promoting mothers, in urban areas with specialized doctors and nurses
Travel expenses for mothers who are networking with women from other communities