Personal message

My name is Judy Rothberg and I’m a part-time paediatrician at Rahima Moosa Mother and Child Hospital. CARE is my chosen charity as I really admire the work that they do. CARE is the only NPO that exclusively funds research in childhood cancer. I have supported them before and I know that they have put the funds to good use and have saved many lives.

 

When I was training to be a paediatrician, I managed a 16 year old boy who had osteosarcoma. He was a funny, cute, charming, clever young man, but unfortunately, he did not survive to achieve his full potential. He had osteosarcoma, which has few survivors in this country. I was ecstatic to learn that CARE is partnering with an international group that is working towards a vaccine for this type of cancer. This is only one of many projects that they are working on, and their research has the potential to make a real difference in South Africa.

 

The CARE research programme supports doctors from all over South Africa, and also work with teams from different parts of Africa,  North America and Europe.  They want to save more lives of children with cancer – if a child is diagnosed with cancer in North America, for example, they have an 80% chance of growing up and living a full and healthy life. If they are diagnosed in South Africa, they have a less than 60% chance. CARE has supported the creation of management plans that are already bearing fruit – the survival rate of certain cancers is slowly rising based on their efforts. More kids are alive today because of CARE.

 

This year I’m running the Virtual Comrades Marathon to raise funds for CARE. I’m terrified – it’s 12 hours of running in one spot or 90 km, whichever comes first.

 

Please partner with me to raise R10 000 for CARE.

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