“His cry filled my eyes with tears and I decided to stay a bit longer to play with him.”
Fatima Rasheed 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). Fatima spent two weeks on the volunteer program at SKMCH Lahore. At the paediatric ward, she learnt a great deal from the patients she made friends with.
“My moment of my volunteer experience at Shaukat Khanum was so rewarding. But there is one moment that stands out because it truly touched my heart. As I was leaving one day at the end of my volunteering hours, a paediatric patient at the Hospital cried ‘Aapi na jaao!’ His cry filled my eyes with tears and I decided to stay a bit longer to play with him.”
“I wanted to give him a few more minutes of feeling like he is like any other child who enjoys playing and not just a cancer patient. My volunteer experience here made me realize that the Hospital is not only offering financial support to patients, but is also building hope and strength within the cancer patients. I saw first-hand how vital this is for patients to battle their illness.”