A Day at MAHAK When Champions Beget Champions

On the occasion of International Childhood Cancer Day, MAHAK held a ceremony on February 7th, under the name of “A Day with MAHAK” which aimed to raise funds in support of children with cancer with the impressive attendance rate of more than 300 MAHAK supporters.

Like previous ceremonies in MAHAK, many celebrities attended this event including Mr. Loris Chaknavarian, Mr. Hooshang kamkar, Ms. Pouri Banaei and Mr. Sedgigh Tarif and many others.

At the beginning of the ceremony, Dr. Javad Karbassi-Zadeh, Chairman of MAHAK Board of Directors, delivered a speech starting with a poem by famous poet Hafez, followed by acknowledging that all who have attended this event have contributed time and energy to show their love and support for humanity.

He continued by citing the four main principles of MAHAK and elaborated on how transparency, accountability, appreciation, and integrity form a declaration of rights for our donors should they be interested in knowing how and where their donations are directed to and that by visiting the MAHAK website they are able to inspect the soundness of this special organization’s financial records.

MAHAK is always appreciative of its benevolent supporters realizing that it is their donations which help spin the heavy wheel of treating children with cancer.  With the rise in demands for services, effects of operating in a hyper-inflationary environment, and ever-increasing emphasis on quality, the organizational budget for the upcoming year is anticipated to be in the range of  130 billion tomans which makes it almost twice as large as this year’s, according to the report provided by the Managing Director.

Mr. Saadati, the CEO of Jaboon the financial supporter of this event, mentioned a different approach toward social responsibilities.  Referring to conversion of as indicative of not so much creating but converting one form into another, he asserted that the same rationale can be applied to societal wealth where one form of wealth can be converted into others in the form of social capitals, natural capitals, human capitals, economic capitals and humanitarian charity-based capital. As owners of wealth-generating economic enterprises, we have a social responsibility and, indeed, debt to convert some of that to societal capital, he posited.

The next presentation was by Mr. Arasb Ahmadian, the managing director of MAHAK, who spoke regarding the current state of affairs at MAHAK. Mr. Ahmadian set the scene by emphasizing the systematic methodology underpinning planning at MAHAK where  we don’t wait for donations to accrue before proceeding to disburse. In a systematic approach, first the needs of the target group which are children with cancer are estimated and then relevant plans for fund generation are devised.  The result-based planned program is then implemented with no delay or other forms of inefficiencies.  Both MAHAK charity and hospital function in this fashion addressing the pressing needs of the society in line with declared commitments. Hence, in addition to the three functional fields of declared activities namely supportive services, treatment and researche, MAHAK undertakes revenue generation as well.  In 1392, from every 1000 Tomans revenue generated, 159 Tomans went back into revenue generation while 841 Tomans were spent directly for provision of services to the target group.  But by using the increase in value premise coined by the World Health Organization (WHO), this 841 Toman translates into 49,600 Toman in service-earned value.  This means that for each 1000 Tomans donated to MAHAK, services in the purchase value of 49,600 Tomans are offered to children with cancer and their families. This means an increase in value over 49.6 times.

The following segment was particularly touching.  Saeed Nasiri, one of MAHAK’s cured children and world champion in weightlifting presented his latest medal to MAHAK followed by a thank you speech from one of the children under treatment who made his way from the residential center few stories below.  Mohammad Bagher read from a prepared note: Hello Uncle Saeed,

When our nurses told us that one of the cured children of MAHAK was able to get a gold medal and has gave the medal to MAHAK, we thought that you are as old as us. After looking at your picture we saw that you have both a beard and a mustache. We knew it was your uncle Saeed.

We are always happy when we see Iran get a new sports medal, but this time it was different because it was from someone like us who has had cancer but has been cured. We now know that its possible for us to become champions as well. We have decided to become champions! Oh but we still don’t know in which sport we want to be champions. Mohammad who is in room number two wants to be strong like you and have a gold medal in weightlifting. We love you very much, because we know that you love us too and you have given MAHAK your medal as well. You have showed us and our moms and dads that we can be free from cancer as well. We can become so strong that one day we can have a medal too and help MAHAK.

Please come visit us again and become a champion once again but don’t forget to tell everyone that you are our friend.  Ms. Saeedeh Ghods, the founder of MAHAK who accepted Saeed’s medal on behalf of MAHAK then invited Mrs. Eslami, a special lady living in Shiraz who has managed to support over 9000 patients with cancer with very limited resources to come on stage.

Milad Kai-Maram celebrated actor also presented his best-actor plaque earned from a prestigious jury.  Then Sajjad Yaghoubi, an Iranian inventor presently pursuing his medical studies presented his international award for ‘best inventor of the year’ to MAHAK as well.  Three model champions encouraging championship spirit which is so communicable it begets other champions.

The fundraising drive which was conducted in an interspersed fashion with activities mentioned above managed to raise the treatment costs of 300 children in MAHAK hospital and the other 32 hospitals across Iran supported by MAHAK.

We are extremely grateful to all donors that have shown self-sacrifice and genuine care for fellow human beings by contributing time, money, awards, and kindness to help MAHAK achieve its lofty goal of ‘no cancerous child shall ever go untreated due to financial impediments’ become reality.  Thank you champions.