Volunteer Hadia Discovers a Child’s Strength

Hadia Mumtaz is a member of the Shaukat Khanum Tiger’s Club – a youth club in Pakistan, which organises awareness-raising activities and allows students to volunteer at Shaukat Khanum Hospital (SKMCH). Hadia spent fifteen days on the volunteer program at SKMCH Lahore. At the paediatric ward, where she helped out, Hadia learnt a great deal from the patients she made friends with.

“My fifteen day volunteer work at Shaukat Khanum Hospital was a life changing experience,” says Hadia. “Those fifteen days truly remoulded my perspective on life. I interacted with almost all the kids in the playroom, who were aged between 3 and 18 years-old. All of them had their own stories. However, 3 year-old Umar turned out to be that chapter of my life where I changed as a human being.”

“I remember his tiny hands, that were almost half the size of my palm, filled with cannulas. What impacted me the most was his gapped, toothless smile. His small voice yelling, Hadia lets play! still echoes around me every day. Umar loved to color, and we shared the same favorite color – blue. We spent hours colouring and would argue about which shoe of the cartoon character to colour yellow. On my last day, we coloured a super hero and he named it ‘Umar the Super Hero’.

Inspiring the younger generation to take time out of their lives and spend it with cancer patients has been one of the hallmarks of SKMCH’s legacy. We are proud of our young volunteers and fundraisers. Yet while they give their time with the intention to change the lives of cancer patients for the better, it is often they who come out of the experience changed.

“I asked Umar to come visit me someday, and he said, Once I am completely cured, I’ll meet you and we’ll play cricket. Umar had so much hope about his recovery and about playing cricket with me. The spark I saw in his eyes is still embedded in my mind,” Hadia explains. “Me and Umar talked a lot that day, I asked him about his favourite thing about the hospital while we were colouring. He paused for a while, then smiled and his reply melted my heart, Hadia you’re my favourite!”

“I won’t ever forget what he said that day. I won’t forget his tiny hands trying to grab all the color pencils at once, or his smile that welcomed me every day to the ward. That little boy taught me more about life than I had ever learnt. His crooked, broad smile and over excitement about every tiny thing often got me reconsidering my own attitude towards living. I met my 3 year-old super hero at SKMCH. A true warrior who gave me smiles and taught me the real purpose of life.”

 

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