Drawing a Ring of Hope around eye cancer in children

Aravind’s Ring of Hope program, founded in 2004, provides treatment for children with retinoblastoma, a virulent form of eye cancer that primarily affects children under the age of five years.

One of those children is Diwakar, who had to have surgery when he was two years old, because his cancer was too advanced to save his eye. His parents brought his younger sister Rithika to the hospital just after she was born, and Aravind was able to save her vision and her life. Today, both children are thriving, and their success story was reported in The Hindu newspaper, as part of Retinoblastoma Awareness month. Click here to read more.

Treating retinoblastoma successfully, like any cancer, takes several years of follow-up treatment and screening. Thank you to the Sohum Foundation, the Madison Community Foundation Jaya G. Iyer Endowment Fund, the Umberto and Clorinda Romano Foundation, the Yvette and Derryck Dias Foundation and countless individual donors. Your generosity has supported more than 6500 patient visits for kids like Diwakar and Rithika and ensured that they grow up cancer-free and full of hope.