Born with cancer. Imagine that. It’s often how people refer to young Lilah’s condition. Doctors discovered Lilah’s cancer shortly after birth in the form of a golf-ball sized tumour. Five years after undergoing an operation and multiple bouts of chemotherapy, Lilah can now call herself cancer-free.
Lilah, 5, embodies the qualities of a survivor. She inspires many with her positive spirit, resilience and strength. That’s why this young hero is the face of the 2010 winter SickKids Lottery.
The SickKids Lottery contributes to providing a brighter future for children like Lilah through its support of programs at SickKids Foundation and The Hospital for Sick Children. In fact, in 2008-09, 14 per cent of the Foundation’s gross revenues came from the Lottery program. Ticket buyers can certainly give themselves a pat on the back.
The 2010 winter SickKids Lottery offers some exciting brand-new prizes to be won. In addition to the incredible grand prize of $1-million cash††, there are five new Dream Pack Prizes offered that are themed around: Drive, Indulgence, Escape, Excitement and Totally Niagara.
The winter Lottery offers our best ticket pricing*. Get together with co-workers or friends and purchase a 10-pack of tickets for $500 to get the best possible pricing per ticket. You can also purchase one for $100, three for $200 or five for $300. You can even purchase your tickets online, which helps us reduce transactional costs!
With every ticket you purchase, you help further the mission of SickKids Foundation and help support The Hospital fro Sick Children.
Good luck! To learn more about the lottery, visit the SickKids Lottery website. You can read more about Lilah’s story and even watch her video!
*††‡ See rules and regulations at www.sickkidslottery.ca. Lottery License #2486.
TIA –This Is Africa. They actually say that in Ethiopia. It’s not just a line from a Hollywood movie. They don’t use it as an apology, but as a statement of fact. TIA means that here things happen at their own pace and you’d better accept it because there is no changing it. TIA means that for better or worse, Africa is a place like no other. For a variety of reasons, things happen here that would never happen elsewhere – both for the bad and for the good. While my currently inadequate understanding of such an expansive, dynamic and complex continent is limited only to a small portion of a single country, it is proving enough for me to begin to understand why such a simple statement could effectively encompass such an overwhelmingly large notion.
Ethiopia is a country of 80 million people living in a space the size of Bolivia with only 120 paediatricians. It is definitely a nation facing staggering challenges. It has a lot of needs, but my experience there showed me it also has a lot to offer. Without a doubt, the success of this country lies in its people. Those I encountered were gracious and determined. The health-care workers I met at Black Lion deal with their situation with humour and resiliency. They reminded me that if I changed my perspective and abandoned my assumptions, I would ultimately get a better understanding of their everyday lives. The green line, for example, should not be mistaken for a lack of standards. The doctors and nurses at Black Lion run their wards with limited resources, but definitely with rules and principles. Without a doubt, they do the best they can with what they’ve got. And in the end, the green line and all it represented – while hard to take in at first – not only allowed me access to incredibly interesting medical procedures performed by a variety of talented professionals, but to contribute in a small way to change the lives of those being treated, which is a generous gift to give a non-medical person.
In the interviews, I asked everyone – Ethiopian and Canadian alike – what they felt they were getting out of this particular collaboration between our countries. There were the anticipated answers about knowledge transfer and capacity building, which I was certainly happy to hear. And there were also moving answers about lasting friendships and affecting change and how things are going to be a decade down the road. Ultimately though, the answers that stayed with me the longest concerned the recognition of a necessity to not only bear witness but to be seen. While incredibly important, No Boundaries and HKI’s other programs are not just about building infrastructure and nurturing sustainability. They’re also about making human connections, and acknowledging each other with respect and dignity. That certainly happened during our week in Addis. And it was my privilege to be part of it.
Please support HealthyKids International, so we can continue to develop programs that help change the lives of children around the world.
Stacia Neale, Fundraising Operations for HealthyKids International (HKI), is blogging on her experiences as she accompanies the SickKids No Boundaries team to Ethiopia to oversee the filming of a documentary. Read all her posts here.
Friday was our last day at Black Lion Hospital. The Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT) and Orthopaedic teams only had a few surgeries scheduled. As things were coming to an end, we said our goodbyes to all of our new and longstanding friends, and headed up to the paediatric wards to hand out the leftover gifts and donations we brought with us from Canada.
It was hard to see all those kids, some incredibly sick and dying, in conditions that we are nowhere near used to in Canada. It was difficult to be pulled at from 10 different directions by those who wanted the socks and dolls we were handing out. But at the same time, a simple act of visiting and bringing a small token of friendship brought such joy to both our team and the patients and their families. It was humbling for me to take part.
We left the wards and went to watch Dr. Blake Papsin teach a class of ENT residents. It was an interactive session and he got asked a lot of questions. Apart from his time in class, Dr. Papsin also gave the gift of knowledge through his donation of a laptop and videos of surgeries performed at The Hospital for Sick Children. The students were anxious to access such an invaluable teaching tool and reference.