We at St. Jude India ChildCare Centres (St. Judes ) have been effortlessly striving to ensure that every child battling cancer is offered the best care while undergoing treatment. Our aim is to ensure that every child undergoing cancer treatment gets the best chance to not only beat the disease but also get access to the best opportunities to fulfil their potential.
The organisation was started in 2006 by Shyama and Nihal Kaviratne and a dedicated group of volunteers. Our first centre was in Mumbai, which housed and cared for eight children and their families. Today, we have expanded to 39 centres across nine cities: Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kolkata, Vellore and Varanasi. St Judes works alongside Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai, AIIMS, New Delhi, Tata Medical Centre, Kolkata, Dr. B Borooah Cancer Institute in Guwahati and various cancer hospitals in nine cities across India.
We recently completed four years of our journey in Guwahati!
St. Judes has two centres in Guwahati, each housing 12 families free of cost. Children undergoing Cancer treatment at Dr. B Borooah Cancer Institute, Guwahati, reside at these centres. Like all our other centres, the Guwahati facility also provides accommodation and care for families who come for treatment from smaller villages and towns of Assam, Manipur and other parts of the North East of India.
For these young cancer warriors and their families, our centres are symbolic of ‘a home away from home’.Tackling cancer takes a toll on the children and their families, who spend a significant amount of money on treatment and medication. Finding a place to stay, nutritious food, and their day-to-day expenses take a backseat. In most cases, they are compelled to take shelter on the footpath in front of the treating hospital.
St. Judes seeks to bridge this gap by providing free-of-cost accommodation and holistic care to these children to improve their chances of surviving childhood cancer. We offer every family an individual living space which is stocked with all the amenities they would need during their stay. Each centre has a common community space or learning area, shared washrooms and bathing facilities, a common kitchen and a dining area. Each family gets their own cooking stove in the kitchen and provisions for cooking are supplied every week.
Our mission is to ensure that more and more children get access to these facilities so that they can beat cancer not just in Guwahati but across the country.
Each and every gesture of goodwill, monetary or otherwise, goes a long way inmaking a big difference to the lives of childhood cancer patients. Be a part of St. Judes’ journey and together, let’s add a little sunshine and joy to the lives of these little warriors.