VIVA Foundation for Children with Cancer

In February 2018, ProtoStar made a $3,500 grant to the VIVA Foundation for Children with Cancer (“VIVA”).  The purpose of the grant was to sponsor a doctor/nurse team from the B.P. Koirala Memorial Cancer Hospital in Bhatarpur (Chitwan), Nepal, to attend the 12th St. Jude-VIVA Forum on “Teamwork and Multidisciplinary Roles in Paediatric Oncology.”

VIVA is a Singapore-based charity whose mission is “to save the lives of children with cancer through excellence in medical care, research, and education.”  Modeled after St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee (“St. Jude”), VIVA provides free or affordable medical treatment for children with cancer in Asia.  It works closely with St. Jude towards the goal of replicating St. Jude’s high cure rate for children’s cancer in Singapore and more broadly in Asia.[1]

However, many families from Asian countries in and around this region, such as Malaysia, Indonesia, and Nepal, do not have the financial means to obtain medical treatment for their children with cancer in their own countries, let alone travel to St. Jude in the United States for such treatment or even to VIVA in Singapore.  To help alleviate this problem, VIVA has partnered with St. Jude to provide educational seminars to doctors, nurses, and other healthcare providers from neighboring Asian countries.  This training would allow these healthcare providers to bring the knowledge and expertise back to their hospitals and provide cancer treatment to children in their own countries.

ProtoStar’s grant provided financial assistance to a doctor/nurse team from the B.P. Koirala Memorial Cancer Hospital in Nepal to attend the 12th St. Jude-VIVA Forum.  Established in 1992 by the Nepali Government, the B.P. Koirala Memorial Cancer Hospital is reputed to be the first national cancer center to fight against cancer in Nepal.  It provides state-of-the-art services and facilities for the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and research on cancer.  The knowledge gained by the doctor/nurse team on a multidisciplinary approach to curing cancer would hopefully be applied to help children seeking cancer treatment at the B.P. Koirala Memorial Cancer Hospital and be used to train other doctors, nurses, and healthcare providers in Nepal.

[1] The featured picture above was chosen by ProtoStar because the white building on the left, the Singapore ArtScience Museum, is shaped in the form of a lotus flower.  In the Chinese culture, the white lotus flower symbolizes purity of mind, body, and spirit.  It is a fitting symbol for all of the beautiful children in Asia and around the world seeking treatment for cancer.