Jessa was only 33 when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. The news came as a shock for the young administrative assistant who began to feel hopeless and like this would be the end of the road.

To make matters more difficult, Jessa’s insurance ran out quickly after beginning the treatment plan and she did not know how she was going to be able to fund the remaining medicine that she desperately needed to save her life.

Through the A’awen Giving website, Al Jalila Foundation set up a crowdfunding campaign for Jessa and the community quickly jumped in to help cover her treatment.  The support she received was incredible and soon all the funds were in place for Jessa’s healing journey to continue.

Jessa is now looking forward to the future with a heart filled with hope and appreciation, “After the initial shock, reading stories of other patients inspired me and gave me hope. Thanks to the support of Al Jalila Foundation and all those special people who helped me, I can continue living a normal life despite this disease. My message to those who are newly diagnosed, is that it is normal to feel down at first but we need to fight this battle. ‘Be positive, stay hope-full and lean on friends and family for support.’” 

Today, Jessa’s treatment is working and her pain has greatly reduced. She is following a very healthy diet and exercise plan and living a normal life with less worry, less stress and building stronger connections to her loved ones.

Note: Esa’s story was  published by Gulf News on 26 September 2022.

InstaShop is recognised as one of the leading online marketplaces for supermarkets, pharmacies, pet shops and other businesses in the Middle East. Since establishment in 2015 InstaShop has gathered a large and loyal customer base who rely on their services daily.

As a company headquartered in the UAE, InstaShop was looking for the most efficient ways to give back to the community through their CSR initiative while also delivering solutions to their customers.  In true InstaShop innovative style, they moved forward with a plan that not only fulfilled their CSR goals but also encouraged their vast network to donate by making a special donation option on their platform so customers could donate to Al Jalila Foundation to support the treatment of sick children at the click of a button.

To get the ball rolling, they notified their customers of this option and during Ramadan ramped up their efforts to increase donations. InstaShop placed inspiring advertisements on social media and various digital platforms around the country to highlight some of the children that Al Jalila Foundation had supported as a way to encourage customers to support more children.

Thanks to InstaShop’s dedication and commitment to help others they managed to raise an astonishing AED 100,000 to support children’s treatment in the UAE.

InstaShop stands as a wonderful example of how corporate organisations can use their network and business platform to make a difference in the community and save lives.

14-year-old Muhammad with autism has a loving and supportive family who do everything they can to provide him a meaningful happy life and completely support him to attend mainstream school. However, his mother Najia couldn’t help but feel that her son was capable of so much more. She was resolved to take every opportunity to enable Muhammad to flourish in life.

When Najia heard of Al Jalila Foundation’s Ta’alouf Parents Training Program, which enables parents of children of determination to gain life-changing skills to enhance their children’s unique abilities, she signed up immediately.

The Ta’alouf program allowed Najia to gain a great deal more confidence to present better opportunities to Muhammad and strengthened her skills and ability to apply them daily.

Thanks to Najia’s knowledge and nurturing she has watched her son blossom before her eyes. Muhammad has significantly progressed in his self-control of emotions, movement and sound which is demonstrated by his increased confidence with eye contact and improved concentration. In addition to this she is noticing that Muhammad is gaining more self-reliance by self-actioning and has become far more articulate and expressive during discussions.

Najia is delighted with the positive changes, “There is a lot of ambiguity around autistic children, but we as a family are determined to learn how to be the best support for Muhammad. A child with autism is a beautiful person who only needs his surrounding world to highlight the beauty within him. Thank you, Al Jalila Foundation, for your tireless pursuit to serve children of determination.”

When 2-month-old baby boy Muhammad had great difficulty breathing and eating his parents grew worried and were even scared to lose him. After careful medical observation it was confirmed that he suffered from congenital heart disease and needed urgent open-heart surgery to repair the cardiac malformation.

Muhammad’s parents had lived in Dubai for over 10 years and also have a 6-year-old daughter who is attending school. His father supported the family through work as a salesman and his mother was engaged in looking after baby Muhammad and his sister. The family’s budget was already stretched and they certainly did not have the financial means to cover the surgery costs.

Through the Al Jalila Foundation A’awen Giving website, we spread the word on Muhammad’s condition and our supportive community responded by flooding his campaign page with donations and raising the full amount needed for the operation.

Thanks to these generous donors Muhammad was able to undergo the life-saving surgery and post treatment care he desperately needed. Today, Muhammad’s breathing is healthy, and he is growing up to be a strong vibrant little boy.

Muhammad’s parents are forever grateful, “From the bottom of our hearts we give great thanks to all the compassionate people who donated so that we have our son by our side today. We cannot express our joy to witness the return of his healthy appetite and the sound of his laughter when he is playing with his sister.”

Nobody wants to hear “you have cancer”, nobody.

An avid cyclist, Guido De Wilde, approached his cancer journey like a challenging bike ride – an endurance race – and when he recovered it was important to him to give back. Guido knows first-hand the impact of a cancer diagnosis and, with Cycle Against Cancer, he wanted to deliver a message of hope to other cancer patients and raise funds for Al Jalila Foundation to help patients in need.

The 7-day charity cycling challenge from Guido’s home country of Belgium to Italy (from Waterloo to Bergamo) covered 1,200 kilometres and climbing 14,000 metres. The team faced torrential rains, high speed winds and steep climbs but remained determined to achieve their goal. Their efforts paid off! The campaign raised an incredible AED 370,000 to support the fight against cancer.

“I am so proud we were able to deliver on our promise. It was a result of doing the right thing as one team and of the tremendous response we received from the community. We are hugely grateful and thank all donors for their generosity.”

Congratulations to the team: Guido De Wilde, Luc Vercruyssen, Filip De Grauwe, Filip Lauwers, Jan Dhont, Servee Palmans, Tim Derry, Walter Roelants and Wim Tavernier. We are incredibly proud of how they used their passion for cycling for the greater good.

Guido is proof that “there is life after cancer” and his story spreads hope and inspiration to others on the same journey.

Click here to watch a recap of Cycle Against Cancer.

When Dubai resident Shayani Madushika felt a slight itch and pain in her left breast last July, she quickly feared the worst.

Initially brushing it off as nothing untoward, the mother-of-two decided to consult a doctor, mainly for reassurance, as the pain persisted and a lump had formed.

Ms Madushika, 44, had only recently moved from Sri Lanka to Dubai with her two children to join her husband but her life was turned upside-down only days after that initial appointment, when she received a diagnosis that the small lump was a cancerous tumour.

After several tests, doctors confirmed the presence of a tumour and informed Ms Madushika that it needed to be removed.

“The radiologist’s test results came back and showed a suspicious lump,” she said. “[I was advised to get] a biopsy to confirm what exactly it was. Everything was happening so fast and additional test results confirmed that the lump was cancerous. I felt like I was given a death sentence.”

Having only recently moved to Dubai, she had no medical insurance and limited funds to hand.

Fearing this would delay her recommended treatment, she began to feel helpless.

“Doctors confirmed I did not need to undergo chemotherapy but said I needed to start a three-week bout of radiation,” she said. “When I inquired about the costs of treatment, it was extremely expensive.” Her doctor recommended she get in touch with the Al Jalila Foundation in Dubai, which could help with the costs of the treatment.

“The foundation is absolutely amazing,” she said. “In a matter of a few days, my request was approved and I was set to have my radiation treatment in the best hospitals in UAE. I felt blessed.”

Not only did the foundation cover the cost of the treatment, she said the emotional support she received through the Majlis helped her to maintain a positive attitude throughout.

“I am ever so grateful to the Al Jalila Foundation for funding the total cost of my radiation treatment. I was blessed to have been in UAE for the treatment. The doctors, nurses and all medical staff have been nothing but wonderful. I have never received or seen that kind of kindness and patience.”

In December, Ms Madushika underwent her last radiation session and doctors confirmed that the cancer had not spread.

Speaking to The National, Dr Abdulkareem Al Olama, chief executive of Al Jalila Foundation, said breast cancer was the most common form of the disease affecting women in the UAE.

“[It makes up] 38 per cent of all female cancers. A breast cancer patient knows first-hand just how valuable having the right treatment to fight the disease is. Al Jalila Foundation consider it a privilege not only to be in a position to provide financial medical assistance to patients like Shayani, but also to offer emotional support through our Majlis Al Amal community.”

Ms Madushika has since returned to Sri Lanka so her children can attend in-person classes but said being in Dubai at the time of her diagnosis saved her life.

Note: Shayani’s story was  published by The National on 23 August 2022.

Saad Syed has become the first doctor in his family and in his words “a dream come true” which he credits to his Al Jalila Foundation scholarship. Alea Mohammed says that she could not “have reached this milestone without the support of Al Jalila Foundation”. Aya Akhras pursued her academic journey with great pride and looks forward to “serving the UAE and giving back”.

Saad, Alea and Aya from the MBRU Class of Khalifa 2022 recently graduated from the Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) program at Mohammed Bin Rashid University of Medicine and Health Sciences (MBRU) with Al Jalila Foundation scholarships. We are proud to celebrate 11 new medical doctors set to embark on the next chapter of their careers in medicine.

The graduates are made up of exceptionally talented men and women from 7 different countries who consider the UAE their home. By empowering the next generation of medical professionals Al Jalila Foundation is supporting the UAE healthcare agenda and enabling these bright students to realise their dreams of becoming doctors and saving lives.

At Al Jalila Foundation we know that a medical profession is one of the most noble and anyone pursuing this goal will undoubtedly be of great service throughout their life.

The commencement of MBRU Class of 2022 marks a total of 56 Al Jalila Foundation scholarship graduates in nursing, dentistry, public health, pharmacy, molecular biology and biotechnology, among others at local institutions and three international scholarships at Harvard Medical School and Boston University. Since the scholarship program launch in 2013 Al Jalila Foundation has invested almost AED 20 million to nurture the next generation of doctors.

Baby girl Santhoshi was born with a congenital heart problem ‘patent ductus arteriosus’, which is a hole in her heart. By the time she was two months old she was having great difficulty breathing and unable to gain weight, and the doctors confirmed that she needed urgent open-heart surgery to repair the cardiac malformation.

Santhoshi’s parents, who had been married for 13 years, were overjoyed at the birth of their first child and the news that their baby girl had very serious health complications was a devastating blow.

On top of the difficult diagnosis, Santhoshi’s father had been on a reduced salary due to the global pandemic and the family did not have the financial means to cover the costs of the life-saving surgery.

With the support of Al Jalila Foundation A’awen program, and the community that rallied together to raise the necessary funds on the A’awen Giving website, Santhoshi was able to undergo the open-heart surgery.

The operation was very successful. Santhoshi is blossoming and looks forward to a bright future with her loving parents.  “We cannot express our appreciation enough and are forever grateful that we were given the chance to be a happy family. Today our baby is healthy and always smiling thanks to the support from Al Jalila Foundation and the community.”