Published on: March 28, 2012

Palliative care is a personal kind of care.

It is provided in the home whenever possible. This means that the team gets to know the family, becoming part of their support system. It wasn’t long before we realized that children are highly affected when their parents become ill with cancer or other life-limiting diseases.

Keeping this in mind, we are organizing a 3-day summer camp for children age 12-18 with parents who have had life-limiting diseases.

The event will take place from the 19-21 April 2012 in JMM study center, Mannanthala, Trivandrum, Kerala.

The organizers will provide personality development training, creative activities, entertainment and one day of outing to museum and planetarium. It will provide the kinds of activities that allow the children a precious opportunity to leave all their grievances behind for a few days and enjoy themselves.

Pallium India currently provides educational support for 150 children. Beyond financial aid for education, we also aim to see these young people grow up as responsible, confident individuals with good self-esteem.

Read one of the children’s stories below. (Note: names are changed for confidentiality.)

Let me introduce you to Archana, a bubbly 12-year-old who loves singing film songs and playing with her friends. Like other children of her age she used to go to school and dreamt of acquiring enough education to support her family one day.

Everything changed when her father Rajappan, 43, was diagnosed with cancer. A daily wage earner, he could no longer support his family, let alone find enough money for his treatment.

Poverty forced Archana to drop out of school. As it turned out, this was just the beginning of her troubles. Neighbours who were supportive in the beginning started turning up less often. Even her playmates in the neighborhood stopped talking to her due to misconceptions and myths regarding cancer.

Within a few months what seemed like a promising future for this school girl turned out to be a murky tunnel with no light at the other end.

Pallium India stepped in and provided funds for both Archana and her sister so that they could stay in school. The organization also assessed the home situation, and purchased a sewing machine for the family so that they could earn money from home.

In all, ways to help them to blossom into the little flowers they were born to be.