Home > About us > Childhood Cancer Awareness Month 2024

September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month (CCAM).

Every day in the UK, 10 children and young people will receive the devastating news that they have cancer. Of those 10, two will not survive. Of those that survive, many will have long-term side-effects that may significantly impact their lives forever. This Childhood Cancer Awareness Month 2024, we’re asking for your help to give every child the chance to grow up and fulfil their dreams.

Trailer - Kids Like Us available now on Sky

Kids Like Us is available now on Sky.

Children with Cancer UK is proud to introduce you to a powerful 90-minute film produced by Echo Velvet (the producers of ITV’s critically acclaimed documentary It’s Showtime) and follows the extraordinary lives of eight remarkable young people from across the UK and US who have faced the unimaginable.

Kids Like Us, a landmark documentary feature which will fundamentally change the way we view childhood cancer and the issues that surround it.

You can read the biography of each child featured in the film, by clicking here. 

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What is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month?

Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, also known as CCAM, aims to generate awareness and support for children suffering from cancer. 

When is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month? 

It happens every September across the world. Childhood Cancer Awareness Month (CCAM) started in 1990, and 2024 marks its 34th anniversary. 

How you can get involved this September

This September, get involved in this year’s Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. Here are some of the ways you can help.

Dulcie dressed as a princess, surrounded by other princesses.

Donate today

Donate today to help fund research into developing less harmful treatments so that children like Dulcie not only survive cancer but can also grow up happy and healthy.

Make a donation
Make a donation
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Supporting our charity will help us to save lives

From one-off donations and corporate sponsorship, to challenging yourself to run a marathon or organising a tea party, your contributions will not only support our cases, but can also lead to invaluable personal growth.

Get involved
Get involved
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Fundraising ideas

Want some creative ideas on how you can fundraise during Childhood Cancer Awareness Month? Look no further. Take a look at some suggestions and watch this page as we introduce more fun ideas for raising money to help children with cancer.

Ways to fundraise
Ways to fundraise

How you’re helping

Your generous support is helping us to fund important new research that will help to give children with cancer a better chance to fulfil their dreams.

We’ve teamed up with Dr Karin Straathof at University College London Cancer Institute, who’s working on a project which aims to ‘reprogram’ the T-cells in the body so they can recognise and kill cancer cells. Whilst T-cells are always patrolling the body in search of infected cells, they ignore cancer cells which are shielded. Dr Straathof wants to equip these cells with additional abilities (a bit like a powerup in a video game) to overcome this and get better results. The project got underway in January 2024 and is expected to last 24 months. Thanks to supporters like you, we’ve been able to contribute a grant amount of £231,742. Find out more.

 

Clifford photo for CwC 281116

We’re incredibly proud to be supporting the INSTINCT programme led by Professor Clifford. It’s an innovative collaborative initiative between the Newcastle University Centre for Cancer, the UCL Institute of Child Health and the Institute of Cancer Research. The aim of the programme, which started in 2014, is to carry out vital research into the causes of high risk paediatric brain tumours, and find the best ways to treat them. Thanks supporters like you, we’ve been able to help move this research onto the next stage. Find out more.

Previous years in Childhood Cancer Awareness Month

Each year, we raise awareness of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month in the form of events and stories. Here are a few of our previous milestones.

2023: A hug is such a simple thing

A hug is a wordless gesture that says so much. A hug is care. And understanding. Nothing else can blanket you so instantly in warmth, and love, like a hug can. Hugs are for everyone, anywhere, any time: our friends, our family, our pet. A hug can be quick and gentle, or long and wonderfully crushing.

Some hugs are pure joy: an exhilarated embrace of celebration for all our greatest achievements – those exams we thought we’d never get through, seeing that finish line of a marathon, or hearing a doctor say you’re all clear.

But hugs are for sadder days too – the comforting reassurance you need in times of bad, or even frightening news. When you feel like you can’t go on, a hug can be the tiniest moment that gives you the strength to carry on.

All hugs – be they big, small, gentle, strong, happy, sad – come from the heart. And when you’re in one you can feel with all of yours: you’re not alone.

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2022: When I grow up...

Meet Eve, lover of all things showbiz and living with a cancer diagnosis. We asked Eve, 13 what she wants to be when she grows up? Eve was diagnosed with craniopharyngioma, a type of brain tumour in 2019, at the age of 10. Eve said; “When I dance, everything kind of falls out of my mind. I just go to a whole different place.” Like and watch this video to find out what Eve’s dream is and with your support, you’ll help raise awareness this Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.

You can also watch Josh’s video here: “When I grow up, I want to be a photographer.”

You can also watch the behind the scenes video here.

Donate today

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2021: When I grow up...

We all have dreams of the person we want to become and what we want to achieve in life. For some children, those dreams are interrupted and sometimes shattered, by a cancer diagnosis.

We’re here to ensure that whenever a child receives a cancer diagnosis, they have the best possible chance of survival, whether that’s by finding cures and better treatments through the ground-breaking research we fund, or by helping to ease some burdens along the way.

We won’t let cancer stand in the way of a child’s hope for their future. Your support this Childhood Cancer Awareness Month will help give those children whose lives are put on hold and whose futures are uncertain because of cancer, the chance to live out their dreams.

Donate today

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Conferences

In previous years we’ve hosted our annual Childhood Cancer Conference throughout September. In 2019, the focus was an update on how genomic medicine is being used to deliver new therapies, reduce toxicity, enable early diagnosis and progress efforts to prevent cancer in children, teenagers and young adults. Read about our 2019 Conference here.

Our 2018 conference brought together leading research scientists from across the world to discuss advances in Precision Medicine, and how it can be used to treat children and young people with cancer. Read about our 2018 Conference here.

Copthorne Hotel Newcastle

Golden moments

In 2017,  for Childhood Cancer Awareness Month we celebrated the positive impact of research in childhood and young person’s cancer by asking families to share their ‘Golden Moments’ from their child’s cancer journey. These moments are memories that will never be lost and show that even in difficult circumstances hope is a force for good. 

See the Golden Moments
benji ccam wear the ribbon
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