expatsHaarlem runs for KiKa, against cancer in children

It must be every parent’s worst nightmare: hearing that your child has cancer. Every year 500 to 550 children in the Netherlands are diagnosed with this horrible disease. Today’s cure ratio for cancer in children is 75%, which means there’s still a frightening 25% that does not get better.

In 2002 oncologists Fritsch Hirschstein and Maarten Stoopendaal founded KiKa (Stichting Kinderen Kankervrij | Foundation Children Cancer free) in order to make more money available for research. Back then about 70% of children with cancer could be treated successfully and the two felt there were more possibilities to be explored.

Progress

A 5% increase does not seem a lot in all those years, but let’s put it this way:

Because of Kika every year 25 kids don’t die.

With new technologies coming up, that number has to go up in the coming years, says KiKa. The goal is to give children a chance of 95% to survive cancer in 2025.

Money

What KiKa needs most now, is money. Money for research and to build new specialized hospitals and improve existing ones. Good thing is, there’s a lot of initiatives to raise money.

This weekend is one of the opportunities for you to contribute something to help KiKa reach their goals. On Sunday June 1st, in Spaarnwoude, there will be a big event: ‘Run for KiKa’. Runners do a 5 or 10K and there will be a special 1K children’s run. All runners will be sponsored in order to raise as much money as possible for this important cause.

ExpatsHaarlem will be represented by Marco. So come to Spaarnwoude to cheer on the runners, or even better: run along and get sponsored yourself; you can still sign up for one of the races. Every euro counts!