Blessed Smiles is a non-profit organisation and is a dedicated to our beloved brother "Zaid", who is playing in Heavens and peeking towards us with smiling face. He was so loving and innocent that, he hugged cancer and faded from our lives like a twinkling star. "I still remember myself running barefoot down the street at midnight to convey the news of your birth to our close relative's home. Even though we have been busy living our lives and haven't talked about you as much as we used to, and even though it sometimes seems like your memories are fading, this isn't the fact. As I call your name, I can hear your beautiful and innocent voice calling my name and calling me ASHI baji. From your happy to your sad moments, from your giggles when you showed me how to ride a bicycle to your screams at hospital's bed. I can still hear you and feel you, my little brother. I have a lot to say, but it's getting difficult for me to gather all these emotions at once, which have taken years to hide and suppress. The only thing I want to say is that I miss hearing from you that I'm your favorite sister. Mama really misses you. We miss you. I miss you Zaid".

Ayesha & Usama

Background: 

Science shows that life is a story for which the beginning sets the tone. That makes the early years of childhood a time of great opportunity, but also great risk. Children’s brains are built, moment by moment, as they interact with their environments. In the first few years of life, more than one million neural connections are formed each second – a pace never repeated again. The quality of a child’s early experiences makes a critical difference as their brains develop, providing either strong or weak foundations for learning, health and behaviour throughout life.

Early childhood offers a critical window of opportunity to shape the trajectory of a child’s holistic development and build a foundation for their future. For children to achieve their full potential, as is their human right, they need health care and nutrition, protection from harm and a sense of security, opportunities for early learning, and responsive caregiving – like talking, singing and playing – with parents and caregivers who love them. All of this is needed to nourish developing brains and fuel growing bodies. 

For many millions of the world’s most disadvantaged children – including children living in poverty or affected by conflict and crisis, children on the move, children belonging to communities facing discrimination, and children with disabilities – we are often missing this window of opportunity.  

Millions of children are not receiving the nutrition or health care they need, growing up exposed to violence, polluted environments and extreme stress. They miss out on opportunities to learn and are deprived of the stimulation that their developing brains need to thrive. Their parents and caregivers struggle to get the time, resources and services necessary to provide their children with nurturing care in these contexts.  

When children miss out on this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, they pay the price in lost potential – dying before they have a chance to grow up, or going through life with poor physical and mental health; struggling to learn and, later, to earn a living. And we all pay the price. Failing to give children the best start in life perpetuates cycles of poverty and disadvantage that can span generations, undermining the strength and stability of our societies. 

Source: UNICEF

Aims & Vision: 

Work for children with cancer, disability and help them to acquire education.

1. Fighting Cancer

Cancer is a leading cause of death worldwide, accounting for nearly 10 million deaths in 2020, or nearly one in six deaths. Around 5% of global cancers occur in children and adolescents younger than 15. These are predominantly childhood cancers within the group of leukemia. This bar chart compares the prevalence across ages. Globally 6% of those over 70 years had cancer in 2017. Each year, an estimated 400 000 children and adolescents of 0-19 years old develop cancer. 

• The most common types of childhood cancers include leukemias, brain cancers, lymphomas and solid tumours, such as neuroblastoma and Wilms tumours. In high-income countries, where comprehensive services are generally accessible, more than 80% of children with cancer are cured. In low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), less than 30% are cured. Childhood cancer cannot generally be prevented or identified through screening.

• Most childhood cancers can be cured with generic medicines and other forms of treatment, including surgery and radiotherapy. Treatment of childhood cancer can be cost-effective in all income settings. Avoidable deaths from childhood cancers in LMICs result from lack of diagnosis, misdiagnosis or delayed diagnosis, obstacles to accessing care, abandonment of treatment, death from toxicity, and relapse. Only 29% of low-income countries report that cancer medicines are generally available to their populations compared to 96% of high-income countries. Childhood cancer data systems are needed to drive continuous improvements in the quality of care, and to inform policy decisions.

The Problem: Cancer is a leading cause of death for children and adolescents.The likelihood of surviving a diagnosis of childhood cancer depends on the country in which the child lives: in high-income countries, more than 80% of children with cancer are cured, but in many LMICs less than 30% are cured.

The reasons for lower survival rates in LMICs include: delay in diagnosis, an inability to obtain an accurate diagnosis, inaccessible therapy, abandonment of treatment, death from toxicity (side effects), and avoidable relapse. Improving access to childhood cancer care, including to essential medicines and technologies, is highly cost effective, feasible and can improve survival in all settings.

Our Role: 

2. Standing with Disability

The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) recognizes the human rights of all children, including those with disabilities. Along with the CRC, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) provides a powerful new impetus to promote the human rights of all children with disabilities.

According to the CRPD, children with disabilities “include those who have long-term physical, mental, intellectual or sensory impairments which in interaction with various barriers may hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis”. Children with disabilities are a highly diverse population group. They include children who were born with a genetic condition that affects their physical, mental or social development; those who sustained a serious injury, nutritional deficiency or infection that resulted in long-term functional consequences; or those exposed to environmental toxins that resulted in developmental delays or learning disabilities. Children with disabilities also include those who developed anxiety or depression as a result of stressful life events.

Nearly 240 million children in the world today have some form of disability. This estimate is higher than previous figures and is based on a more meaningful and inclusive understanding of disability, which considers several domains of functioning, including those related to psychosocial well-being. Most children with disabilities have difficulties in just one functional domain. Psychosocial issues predominate at every age, in some cases in combination with other functional difficulties.

Our Role:

3. Educating Young Souls

Literacy is a key skill and a key measure of a population’s education. In this entry we discuss historical trends, as well as recent developments in literacy.

From a historical perspective, literacy levels for the world population have risen drastically in the last couple of centuries. While only 12% of the people in the world could read and write in 1820, today the share has reversed: only 14% of the world population, in 2016, remained illiterate. Over the last 65 years the global literacy rate increased by 4% every 5 years – from 42% in 1960 to 86% in 2015.1

Despite large improvements in the expansion of basic education, and the continuous reduction of education inequalities, there are substantial challenges ahead. The poorest countries in the world, where basic education is most likely to be a binding constraint for development, still have very large segments of the population who are illiterate. In Niger, for example, the literacy rate of the youth (15-24 years) is only 36.5%.

Our Role: