Help 71 Young Colombians who fight against Cancer!

With your contribution, we can help more young people with cancer!

Receiving a cancer diagnosis is always unexpected and is especially difficult for teenagers, because there's a common misconception that young people don't get sick. We recently met Julian, a 17-year-old diagnosed with acute leukemia. It was very positive for us to talk with him, listen to him, validate his emotions, and understand the challenges of his current situation. To connect better, we held an art therapy session, in which we explored different materials to encourage him to express his feelings and emotions.

We found that since his diagnosis, Julian had forgotten who he was, his likes and passions. It was moving to work with him on recognizing himself as a social being, as a member of a family, a community, as a friend, and not just as a hospital patient. We continue to support Julian to strengthen his emotional well-being so he can face his health and illness journey with more resources and skills. We know he will emerge stronger from this experience.

You too can contribute to initiatives like this. What do you think of our work?

With your contribution, we can help more young people with cancer!

At the end of 2025, our youth leader Sara met at the hospital with other young people currently undergoing treatment. The goal of this meeting was to facilitate emotional expression surrounding their cancer diagnosis and treatment. To achieve this, Sara suggested working with modeling clay. A survivor of acute leukemia, she recalled feeling like the disease was a monster that had come to change everything in her life during her treatment. Therefore, she encouraged the young people to mold their own monsters out of modeling clay to express their fears, uncertainties, frustrations, and everything the disease had brought into their lives.

It was an enriching and emotional experience, as verbal communication among them fostered bonds of trust that facilitated the management of their hidden emotions, which they had not expressed in any other context. Creating their own monsters with modeling clay increased their awareness of their fears and anxieties. For example, 16-year-old Mario said that when he was diagnosed with leukemia, he felt very self-conscious: “Everyone was looking at me,” and that made him feel strange. That's why his monster has many eyes. The other participants identified with this feeling and all shared similar experiences.

You too can contribute to initiatives like this. What do you think of our work?