History

The Society to Support Children Suffering from Cancer widely known by its acronym, MAHAK, was set up in 1991 as a non-governmental and non-profit organization (registration number 6567) with the Department of Social Affairs for NGO activities at the Ministry of Interior of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The first noble idea of establishing MAHAK by Saideh Ghods came from her self-experience of caring her daughter suffered from cancer and identification of challenges these families face with. Since the beginning and with gathering of a group of volunteers, the social work activities was carried out in public and university hospitals while the preparation for registering a charity was started in 1989. Since the founding core believed that a charity cannot reach its goals only through a limited group of benefactors, MAHAK was officially registered in 1991 to be able to benefit a larger group of donors and expand its comprehensive support throughout the country.

The abbreviated name “MAHAK” is derived from the type of activities of this charity in Farsi language: “The Society to Support Children Suffering from Cancer” and its logo is a leaf design as a symbol of life on which the child and family are standing hopefully.

Since the very beginning, MAHAK has been run by public donations, their benevolent intensions and voluntary activities. Holding charity bazaars, distributing donation boxes as well as growing the number of members are among the measures taken to attract civil society’s support.

Given that, within less than a decade, MAHAK improved children’s recovery statistics through applying scientific and specialized methods in caring patients and their families along with benefiting the trust and support of people as well as the volunteers’ hard works.

MAHAK has always strived to preserve dignity of children suffering from cancer and their families so that they can go through treatment process with hope and the family have no concern but their child’s treatment.

MAHAK activities can be classified in three main groups of Charity, Hospital and Research working merely for cancer-stricken children in the fields of medical, prevention, therapeutic, giving services, healthcare, and welfare services. MAHAK’s slogan, “Help us and let us help you” reflects the role of civil society contribution in loving humanity.

By end of March 2022, MAHAK charity comprehensively supported over 40,000 cancer-stricken children and their families throughout Iran. On the other hand, taking advantage of eminent oncologists and physicians in MAHAK hospital for determining treatment protocols and offering treatment consultants. In research field, MAHAK has cooperated with various national and international alike research centers including Gustave Roussy research center in France and Royan Institute, Avicenna Research Institute and Cancer Institute in Iran.