Happy Birthday Mom

Happy Birthday Mom

Thanks for everything.

Love

Activity Update

Most of the initial part of starting this foundation had us running around for getting the paperwork done, Pushing them through various stages of approval and then finally getting the approvals. I will write a longer story on that sometime next week. This post is more about the recent activities that we have done.

Dr. Dana and Dr. Gaur in the Mathura Das Mathur (MDM), Hospital are our contact points for most of the activities that we are doing in Jodhpur. MDM is a government hospital with a dedicated Oncology department and most of the patients in the Jodhpur and the adjunct upcountry area come here for their treatment. Few days back, Dr. Dana gave dad a call to sponsor oral chemotherapy for one of his patients, Phool Kanwar. She is suffering from Breast Cancer and is currently in the Chemo phase. We have sponsored oral chemo drug Xeloda for her. This is a relatively inexpensive Chemo drug with a monthly cost of 30-35K INR.

Do drop in an email to us if you want to help with her next round of treatment.

Also, we have donated Mom's wheelchair to Samarthanam. It is a trust for the disabled that takes care of about 100 kids and a few adults. It will be used by Mahesh who works as a documentation assistant at a office in HSR Layout, Bangalore.

The entire experience of donating the wheelchair was very uplifting. The HSR branch is managed by two visually impaired persons, a woman and a man. They also instruct the kids on computer usage apart from this. They were definitely a most fitting representation of triumph of the human spirit. Something that the team at SMCF strongly believes in.

The Human spirit is stronger than anything that can happen to it

Running For SMCF

All the runners running the Bangalore Ultra Marathon finished their respective distances. Some ran 50Km and some 25Km. We salute their spirits and their determination to complete their distances inspite of the grueling sun, cramps, pains, falls and dizziness. Your determinations eggs us on.

Thanks!

T-Shirt Launched

Hi Everyone,

We have been away for the last month. There are a lot of updates that I hope to make in the following posts. There has been a lot of activity and I need to share the details on the same.

To start off, Toube Bas has launched a 'Beat Cancer' T-shirt in association with SMCF. For each T-shirt sold by Toube bas, INR 150 will be donated to the SMCF. You can get a preview of the T-shirt here.

This is what Sorabh has to say about the design done by his team:

The Design
I am a huge fan of simplicity - and that's what makes any creation a supremely difficult job for me. With sensitive issues like breast cancer ... the challenge is that much more enormous.

Prateek had been talking about 'hope' and 'fight' when he spoke about SMCF, and these became the keywords for me for this design. Of course, the t-shirt also had to convey that it's supporting the cause against breast cancer.

The result: we decided that the t-shirt would have a sporty attitude (it's all about the fight, ain't it?) - and decided to imitate the sportswear designs that are used in the universities of the west: bold block letters, curved appropriately, and placed right at the top of the t-shirt. It took a long time for me to decide on what text to put ... and somehow it dawned that the word, "BREAST" can be made to look like the word, "BEAT" ... and so it becomes, "BEAT CANCER".

 Here are few of the designs that the T-shirt is available in:

 

Unveiling the Logo



After working relentlessly for a few days, we have been able to get the logo right. There was a little back and forth on this but finally we have closed on the above logo. When the SMCF team sat down to conjure up a logo for the foundation, there were just two words ringing in our heads: Hope, and Fight. We believe that the logo speaks as much about hope as about fight against this disease that the foundation has set out against.

We would also like to thank our design team which has worked with Sorabh to deliver this logo.

The logo comprises of three key elements:

Shield: Helps a warrior defend and, when required, can be used as an offensive weapon too

Pink Ribbon: Universal Symbol representing the fight against Breast Cancer

Angel Wings: They denote not just hope, but are symbolic of miracles as well

I hope that the logo communicates to the larger world what SMCF stands for. I hope that Mom likes it too!

Run report - KTM 2010

All the runners with SMCF finished the Kaveri Trail Marathon. We had four runners who had signed up on the short notice. Prateek and Shantanu ran the full marathon and Ankita ran the half. Priyanka had originally signed up but was unable to run.

It was a difficult run and the fortitude and resilience of our runner kept them going. The team hopes to sign-up more runners as the marathon season in India warms up. We have had a few runners outside India who have offered to sign up for future runs. Would urge runners who are interested in supporting the cause to email us.

We have had a lot of non-runners who are willing to support the fund raising exercise in a big way. Would really like to thank all of you who have reached out. I would be sending out the details to each one of you. Please give me some time to put together a small introductory brochure for the same. I believe this would be important as most of you have volunteered to help through the corporate route. Will try and quickly turn this around.

Execution plan and Help required

When we started the aid activities, there was an over-riding concern about ensuring the efficacy of any monetary aid we end up extending.  There were quite a few hurdles visible even to a non-discerning eye. As it is the case, majority of under-privileged cancer patients end up at government or government-aided hospital given the economics of the treatment. We could clearly see the following as factors that might limit the efficacy of the aid.

• Placing the money in the hands of the doctor was a clear conflict of interest. Moreover, it would have limited the control that we would have had over funds 
• Money in the hands of the patient would also not guarantee that it would be spent towards treatment. Given the socio-economic reality of most of such families there might be comparable pressing needs that might warrant diversion of funds towards them 

Hence,we decided to take advantage of existing frameworks at the hospitals. We decided to pay either directly to the hospital or to the pharmacy against the medicines that would be issued.

Concurrently, we also decided to constitute a medical advisory board, where in we have done thorough background checks on the doctors and we support their referrals for treatment or medical advise. Our medical board also has eminent doctors across Bangalore, Bombay and Ahmadabad who have committed 'x' amount of time to SMCF. They will counsel the patients that SMCF refers to them and also liaise with pharma companies to reduce the cost of treatment for the referred cases.

You can support us in a multitude of ways. Depending upon the resource you want to contribute, You can drop in a mail to smcfindia [ at ] gmail [ dot ] com :

Please put ‘Financial Support’ as the subject if you want to make a financial contribution. We are an organization that is 80(G) certified and all your donations would be eligible for income tax deductions.

Please put ‘Volunteer’ as the subject if you want to volunteer with SMCF. This is the biggest contribution that you can make to the cause. We need all hands and legs that we can muster to reach out to a larger pool of patients and the medical community.

Please put ‘Fund Raiser’ in the subject if you want to help us if the fund raising for the organization. Given the dreadful nature of the disease and the lack of coverage offered by the Indian medical infrastructure, fund raising can help us reach out to a larger audience. Some of you have already responded to help on this. I am waiting for the website to be up before I formally kick start the fund raising process.

Thanks for your encouragement and I look forward to your continuous support.