No one ever got anywhere by accepting the status quo. Oesophageal Cancer is a difficult disease — hard to identify, hard to live with, hard to treat. But the scale of the challenge simply makes our resolve all the stronger.
The Oesophageal Cancer Fund is the national charity for Oesophageal Cancer in Ireland; bringing the good fight to a bad cancer, we provide a three-pronged, desperately needed service:
Our core organisational values are Support, Community and Zeal, and they’re expressed in all that we do: from our annual Lollipop Day fund-raising days held in Springtime, to bi-annual Patient Support Gatherings as well as our OPTIMAL Rehabilitation Programme and not least, in our steadfast commitment to funding the most innovative, progressive, life-saving research.
Is the practical and emotional help offered by the OCF to cancer sufferers and their friends and family, and the funding we channel directly to scrupulously selected research organisations.
Is the environment we foster for patients and their carers to feel less alone and more connected. There is a network of people who have shared the very specific experience of this disease, and we know from patients and survivors alike just how much it can mean to talk to someone who knows — really knows — what you are going through. But the wider national community is also part of our strategy — how to make sure the general population is aware of Oesophageal Cancer, and how to motivate them to help us fight it.
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” Margaret Mead’s famous quote is a source of inspiration when the obstacles start to feel insurmountable, and we remember that though the challenge that Oesophageal Cancer presents is huge, and we are so small by comparison, we are made enormous by our drive to overcome.
Our vision is of a future free of Oesophageal Cancer, and a present in which anyone affected by it has ready access to all the support, treatment and care they could ever need.
