‘Hope for Kids’ group gets new lease of life |20 December 2022
The Cancer Concern Association (CCA) yesterday relaunched the ‘Hope for Kids’ group in a ceremony at the Four Seasons Resort.
The group is for children aged 7-16 years who have lost either a parent or siblings, or is a cancer survivor, or has a parent or sibling who are cancer survivors.
A few of these kids were invited for this relaunch whose founder is Minister Patricia Francourt together with Bishop French Chang Him in 2018/2019.
Minister Francourt shared the history behind ‘Hope for Kids’ where she was joined by Bishop French. There was a time when quite a number of children were losing their parents through cancer and there was a demand to cater for these children.
“Coming from a background offering therapy and Bishop French being already on the CCA, we decided to start the programme in a small church at Glacis. We worked with the Ministry of Education to identify the children and there were almost 80 children who had lost at least one parent or sibling to cancer. The demand to help them was there. We started looking for a sponsor and we regrouped them and started therapy. For the first time we went on Silhouette for three days where I designed a therapy programme for the children. We had mentors and teachers to help out.”
Minister Francourt noted it was not easy for the children to talk openly about their loss but when in small groups they opened up. With Covid they could not follow up the children physically but they made sure someone from CCA gave them a call every now and then.
“Today reconnecting with the children after two years is very important for us. They all grew and some started working. Many things will depend on the children. Our next step will be to regroup them again and do a therapy as during the two years, many children have lost their parents,” noted the minister.
Among the success stories are that ‘Hope for Kids’ became a support for the children and moulded a path for them to be engaged in the family and society.
“The fact that the children came back to talk to us is that they see it as a safe place to share their emotions and feelings. Many who went on the labour market also went through re-skilling and are doing well. All the children have our numbers and they call us to update us on their lives.”
The new general manager of Four Seasons, Renan Astolpho, shared that the hotel welcomed the children and want to be part of the lives of the children.
“We always want to be part of the community and support the community and this is a very good cause. ‘Hope for Kids’ is definitely an association we want to be close to and collaborate with. We are happy to be close to the kids specially during the festive season. Our staff collaborated to make this event successful. ”
To conclude the chairperson of CCA, Dinaz Van Lans, urged other children going through the same situation to call and join them.
“Currently children who have lost a close family member are sad and do not want to talk about it. We will need counsellors and mentors to help in the accompaniment programme and grief counselling. Many children think that as soon as one of their family members has cancer, they will die! That is not the case and for that ‘Hope for Kids’ is here to help them.”
Ms Van Lans also shared that they will work with the children from Praslin and La Digue soon.
Usually parents/guardians are also invited to participate at these sessions but as it was a working day, this was not possible. Unfortunately, we could not interview the children or even post their photos as no prior permission was sought.
After a copious lunch, the children were invited to participate in various activities prepared by the Four Seasons Resort. The children were lucky to have Father Christmas among them and they all received a gift.
The accompanying photos show some highlights of the occasion.
Vidya Gappy
Photos: Louis Toussaint
