Charities
Maggie's Centre London Campaign
The Maggie's Centres are facilities established to help anyone who has or has had cancer. In the past our St Christopher's team in Edinburgh worked to raise funds for the Scottish centre and now we're going to lend a hand to their new base in London.
Story Highlights
- Where It's Happening
- More About What They Do
- The Help That They Need And What You Can Do
Where It's Happening
Just around the corner from our hostel in Hammersmith, the Maggie's Centres are working hard to establish their first base in London. The development is taking place in front of the Charring Cross hospital which currently sees 6000 cancer patients a year.
You can find the centres across the United Kingdom - including cities such as Edinburgh, Oxford and Swansea. However up to this point there has been no such support base in London. This is made all the more remarkable by the astounding fact that there are approximately 150,000 people living with cancer, in the British capital at any given time.
More About What They Do
The Centres are for those who have and still continue to suffer from cancer and they are also there for the victims who you don't think about quite as much – the families, friends and the carers.
The repercussions of this terrible disease on the mental state of those afflicted can obviously be just as traumatic as the effects on the body and that's where the Maggie's Centres come in.
They facilities provided aim to help people and strengthen their ability to combat cancer, by reinforcing their mental health. They do this by providing a platform where they can share their experiences with others in similar situations. They also enlist professional help so that everyone involved can get to grips with the medical reality of what's happening.
In a nutshell by allowing people to address what's going on in a comfortable environment, the cancer sufferers are more informed and better equipped to contribute to their treatment and recovery.
Founder of the centres, Maggie Keswick Jencks said: “A diagnosis of cancer is like a punch in the stomach. Fear compounded by ignorance and false knowledge is a paralysing attack in its own right. The myth of cancer kills as surely as the tumours.”
The centres combat this by inviting people to step back from everything in a non-institutional place that they can claim as their own.
The Help That They Need And What You Can Do
The centre is going to need a massive investment of £3.5 million (€5.2 million or $7 million).
Construction is already underway and a London newspaper – The Evening Standard has made a pledge to raise £1 million. However that still leaves a massive £2.5 million – an amount desperately needed to combat one of the major causes of mortality in London.
The hope is to complete the centre by some point in 2007 but for that to become a reality they need our help. Maggie's is seeking partnerships with people and organisations to make this happen so if you want to make a donation or think you know an innovative way of helping out, then please do what you can and let us know with an e-mail to submissions@st-christophers.co.uk
