September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month (CCAM).

Every day in the UK, 10 children and young people will receive the devastating news that they have cancer. Of those 10, two will not survive.

Of those that survive, many will have long-term side-effects that may significantly impact their lives forever. This Childhood Cancer Awareness Month 2023, we’re asking for your help to give every child the chance to grow up and fulfil their dreams.

What is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month?

Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, also known as CCAM, aims to generate awareness and support for children suffering from cancer. 

When is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month? 

It happens every September across the world. Childhood Cancer Awareness Month (CCAM) started in 1990, and 2023 marks its 33rd anniversary. 

A hug is such a simple thing

A hug is a wordless gesture that says so much. A hug is care. And understanding. Nothing else can blanket you so instantly in warmth, and love, like a hug can. Hugs are for everyone, anywhere, any time: our friends, our family, our pet. A hug can be quick and gentle, or long and wonderfully crushing.

Some hugs are pure joy: an exhilarated embrace of celebration for all our greatest achievements – those exams we thought we’d never get through, seeing that finish line of a marathon, or hearing a doctor say you’re all clear.

But hugs are for sadder days too – the comforting reassurance you need in times of bad, or even frightening news. When you feel like you can’t go on, a hug can be the tiniest moment that gives you the strength to carry on.

All hugs – be they big, small, gentle, strong, happy, sad – come from the heart. And when you’re in one you can feel with all of yours: you’re not alone.

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Thank you to our community for sharing their special hug photos

Stories featured in our video

How you can get involved this September

This September, get involved in this year’s Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. Here are some of the ways you can help.

How you’re helping

Your generous support is helping us to fund important new research that will help to give children with cancer a better chance to fulfil their dreams.

Understanding the long-term impacts for medulloblastoma survivors

We need to understand the long-term impact of treatments used for children who survive medulloblastoma. Professor Steve Clifford’s research focuses on helping children who survive medulloblastoma to have a better quality of life. His work will help researchers develop gentler treatments and necessary advances in drug and rehabilitation strategies which will provide a brighter outlook for survivors. 

Childhood Cancer Conference 2023

For Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, we’re re-launching our research conference, focusing on Embracing Research, Collaboration and Change. The conference will bring together leading researchers, clinicians, healthcare professionals, early career researchers, representatives from funders across the childhood cancer sector and patient advocates to share their latest findings and discuss the latest trends in the field. You’ll learn about cutting-edge research, clinical trials, and innovative treatment strategies that are improving outcomes for children and young adults with cancer.

 

Previous years in Childhood Cancer Awareness Month

Each year, we raise awareness of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month in the form of events and stories. Here are a few of our previous milestones.

2022: When I grow up...

Meet Eve, lover of all things showbiz and living with a cancer diagnosis. We asked Eve, 13 what she wants to be when she grows up? Eve was diagnosed with craniopharyngioma, a type of brain tumour in 2019, at the age of 10. Eve said; “When I dance, everything kind of falls out of my mind. I just go to a whole different place.” Like and watch this video to find out what Eve’s dream is and with your support, you’ll help raise awareness this Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.

You can also watch Josh’s video here: “When I grow up, I want to be a photographer.”

You can also watch the behind the scenes video here.

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2021: When I grow up...

We all have dreams of the person we want to become and what we want to achieve in life. For some children, those dreams are interrupted and sometimes shattered, by a cancer diagnosis.

We’re here to ensure that whenever a child receives a cancer diagnosis, they have the best possible chance of survival, whether that’s by finding cures and better treatments through the ground-breaking research we fund, or by helping to ease some burdens along the way.

We won’t let cancer stand in the way of a child’s hope for their future. Your support this Childhood Cancer Awareness Month will help give those children whose lives are put on hold and whose futures are uncertain because of cancer, the chance to live out their dreams.

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Conferences

In previous years we’ve hosted our annual Childhood Cancer Conference throughout September. In 2019, the focus was an update on how genomic medicine is being used to deliver new therapies, reduce toxicity, enable early diagnosis and progress efforts to prevent cancer in children, teenagers and young adults. Read about our 2019 Conference here.

Our 2018 conference brought together leading research scientists from across the world to discuss advances in Precision Medicine, and how it can be used to treat children and young people with cancer. Read about our 2018 Conference here.

Copthorne Hotel Newcastle

Golden moments

In 2017,  for Childhood Cancer Awareness Month we celebrated the positive impact of research in childhood and young person’s cancer by asking families to share their ‘Golden Moments’ from their child’s cancer journey. These moments are memories that will never be lost and show that even in difficult circumstances hope is a force for good. 

See the Golden Moments
benji ccam wear the ribbon
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