It is a beautiful solidarity that has become without waiting, in one of the largest solidarity campaigns in Spain. Candela is a girl who was diagnosed with leukemia at eight years old and was admitted to the Sant Joan de Déu Hospital in Barcelona.
A volunteer from the center taught her how to make bracelets to get distracted during the long hours she spent in the hospital, and she in turn taught her two friends, Daniela and Mariona, who began selling them to raise money for the hospital. The magic spread rapidly and three years later, 'Candela' bracelets have managed to raise one million euros for childhood cancer research.
On the eighth floor of the hospital, everyone learned to weave thread bracelets that sold for three and five euros. Family and friends also joined. More than 274,000 bracelets were made and sold. Thus they managed to raise one million euros, 50% of the research budget in oncology of the hospital, with which the staff of researchers at the center could be expanded, which currently has six lines of research.
After a bone marrow transplant, Candela, who has turned 11, has already lived a normal life.
Every year, they are diagnosed in Spain 1,400 new cases of malignant tumors in children. The most common cancer in childhood is leukemia, followed by central nervous system tumors, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, Hodgkin's disease and Wilms tumor in the kidney, Ewing's sarcoma and thyroid cancer.
Cancer is the leading cause of death due to illness in childhood, and according to the Spanish Society of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology (SEHOP) the survival of children diagnosed at five years is 81%.
