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Wafaa Rashed: Demanding action for the 400,000 children diagnosed with cancer each year

Wafaa Rashed/LinkedIn

Feb 18, 2025, 09:01

Wafaa Rashed: Demanding action for the 400,000 children diagnosed with cancer each year

Wafaa Rashed, Chair and Founder of PAPERI, shared a post on LinkedIn:

“Will You Let Them Fight Alone? Or Will You Stand With Them?

Today is International Childhood Cancer Day (ICCD 2025). Today, we speak for those who cannot. Today, we demand action for the 400,000 children diagnosed with cancer each year.

Many of them – especially in low-income countries—never even get the chance to fight. Not because their cancer is untreatable, but because they are abandoned by a system that refuses to prioritize them.

For too long, childhood cancer has been underfunded, underrepresented, and overlooked in global health discussions. But no more. We refuse to stay silent.

We demand that the United Nations hold an official session on childhood cancer—one that does not just acknowledge the crisis but takes real, tangible action to implement the following:

Sustainable Funding for Pediatric Cancer Research – Children deserve more than 4% of global cancer research funds.
More Research to Advance Lifesaving Treatments – Childhood cancer is not the same as adult cancer. Treatments must be developed for them.
Policy Change to Prioritize Childhood Cancer Globally – We need national and international commitments to childhood cancer care.
Equity in Early Diagnosis and Access to Care – No child should die because of where they are born.

Starting now, we amplify the voices of experts, doctors, advocates, and survivors from around the world.

Watch the full ICCD film and stand with us.

United Nations, policymakers, global leaders – will you act? Or will you let them fight alone?

I don’t have an email for the UN or UNICEF to send this request. But I know that when we raise our voices together, they cannot be ignored. Share this message. Amplify this call. Let’s make sure they hear us loud and clear.”

Proceed to the video attached to the post.

More posts featuring Wafaa Rashed.