Child Cancer charity to visit Aylesbury School

Pupils and staff at Aylesbury Vale Academy will support the Azaylia Foundation, a charity raising awareness and funds for childhood cancer.

The charity was set up by Safiyya Vorajee and her ex partner Ashley Cain, a former professional footballer, after their daughter Ayzaylia lost her life to Acute Myeloid Leukaemia. She was just 8 months old.

Since then The Azaylia Foundation is proud to have committed over £700,000 to advance early diagnosis and accelerate the availability of new treatments for childhood cancer which, despite being the number one killer of children under 15 in the UK, receives less than 3% of cancer research funding.

Part of their campaign is Wear Orange for Azaylia, which launched in February 2023.  Children are encouraged to attend school on a given day wearing orange, with the aim to create awareness, mutual support and raise the necessary funding.

Safiyya will be visiting AVA tomorrow (Friday 19th) to meet children and engage in an activity/assembly to promote kindness, inclusivity and mutual support. Parents, children and teachers can learn about childhood cancer and, what the charity say is, the awful implications resulting from the chronic underfunding in this country.

If your school would to get involved with Wear Orange for Azaylia, visit https://theazayliafoundation.com/ (External website)

Since launching, the charity has:

Donated over £700,000 to childhood cancer research and to supporting families, including:

• Financially supported 11 families with treatment plans not covered by the NHS with donations of £10k each for their children's treatment

• Donated £20k to Birmingham Children's Hospital to purchase revolutionary surgical equipment

• Donated £120k to the University of Birmingham to help purchase early diagnostic equipment

• Donated over £100k to the University of Oxford's Department of Paediatrics to fund the SAIL (Scientific Advances for Infant Leukaemia) programme, a collaboration between The University of Oxford and Great Ormond Street Hospital

• Donated £60k to Great Ormond Street Hospital Charity to co-fund a first-ofits-kind clinical trial at GOSH for up to 12 patients with DMG using CAR TCells •

Launched The Azaylia Childhood Cancer PhD fund, and committed over £280,000 to co-fund the first two PhD candidates with Birmingham Children's Hospital and The University of Birmingham