MUMBAI: As we celebrate the UN initiative of International day of Sport for development and peace Friday, it has a close synergy with Yuvraj Singh in many ways. Yuvraj has supported UNICEF development initiatives in the past and continues to do so with his work via his NGO – YouWeCan.
Founded in 2009, YouWeCan (Yuvraj Singh Foundation) works in three primary areas of health, education and sports.
The primary goal of the foundation rests in a cause close to his heart – cancer awareness and prevention. Today, the foundation is successfully expanding two important initiatives – ‘Gift a smile’ – activating youth towards cancer awareness and cancer detection camps.
“I feel blessed to raise cancer awareness with these important initiatives at the YouWeCan Foundation on the occasion of the International Day of Sports for Development and peace. I stand as an example myself of how sports can change a persons life and enable them to fight against all odds. I hope to be able to aid the development of a more cancer aware society around me with these initiatives and find ways to support cancer survivors. Together, we can all make a difference.” said Yuvraj.
The Gift a Smile campaign is intended to sensitise and mobalise youth from schools, colleges, educational institutions and corporates to join hands and raise funds and awareness for the underprivileged cancer patients. This campaign intends to support people suffering from cancer as well their care givers and cancer survivors. The first step involves sensitising the students and volunteers to the subject and second aspect is to involve them in a fund raising exercise directly supporting cancer patients to celebrate special occasions and aid treatment. The campaign envisages to take the YouWeCan initiative to the youth and inculcating the values of helping others from an early age.
The foundation also opens doors to several cancer detection camps, which shall work relentlessly towards providing early detection services to the underprivileged communities focussing on oral cancer screening and breast cancer screening. In every cancer screening camp, breast cancer screening will be done through I Breast Exams – a non – invasive and painless breast health test that offers standardised breast examination accurately. Approximately 120 cancer detection camps across different locations and approximately 105,000 people from underprivileged backgrounds will directly benefit from these camps.
The YouWeCan Foundation is also in the process of collaborating with various hospitals across India for providing treatment to cancer patients who are below poverty line and cannot afford the medical treatment for themselves or their family members. The intention is to sponsor their treatment and help them in a faster and healthy recovery.
With these two initiatives the YouWeCan Foundation aims to spread its reach to aid cancer afflicted families via activating the youth and initiating early detection.
