BEIRUT: The Children’s Cancer Center of Lebanon launched a new campaign Friday that would allow people to donate to the charity directly from their smartphone. The new app “Light a Candle” will allow users to donate $1, $5, $10 or $20, which will be deducted from their prepaid bills or added to their postpaid bills.
“It’s like lighting a candle for your child,” CCCL General Manager Hana Chaar Choueib told The Daily Star. “We hope that all the people will light candles for our children in order to ensure a new life for them.”
The “Light a Candle” initiative was started through a partnership between telecommunications company touch and the CCCL. It was launched at the Yacht Club in Zaitunay Bay Friday.
CCCL is a nonprofit association that deals with the treatment of children with cancer, and was set up 13 years ago. All CCCL patients are treated for free. According to Choueib, each child’s treatment costs $50,000 per year and, according to their website, CCCL have a very strong cure rate of 80 percent.
According to a 2012 National Health Statistics Report, there were almost 200 children under the age of 15 who were diagnosed with cancer in 2007, 3.8 percent of the total cancer cases in Lebanon.
Choueib is hoping that this campaign will help them raise more funds as the organization relies entirely on donations.
The new app will be available throughout 2015 and may be renewed next year if the campaign is successful, she said. However, the app is only available on Google Play, and therefore only users with Android phones who are subscribed to touch will be able to use the app.
Choueib and several others spoke at the launching event, including Vice Chairman and General Manager of touch Wassim Mansour, the mother of a previous CCCL patient Gita Bou Nader and Telecommunications Minister Boutros Harb.
Harb expressed his support for the campaign and highlighted that initiatives such as this should take priority over political ones.
Bou Nader, whose daughter was cured of cancer at CCCL, also expressed her heartfelt support for the “Light a Candle” campaign.
“I have been lighting a candle for my daughter Thea every day for the last five years,” she said during her address. “The CCCL has had a major role in Thea’s recovery and her triumph over cancer. I am eternally grateful to the CCCL donors whose support has saved my daughter’s life.
“The survival of the center is the guarantee of the survival of children with cancer in Lebanon.”
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