Dear members of the board,

After returning from Istanbul, we would like to thank you very much for your warm hospitality, which we enjoyed all the time during the conference. Many meetings we had, gave us a chance to learn that between various national organizations there had been long term co-operations, understanding and mutual help. We saw that there were organizations which would be able to help their members in many ways, and on the other hand, there are those which are similar to our organization.

We are happy that at least 20% of the children in the world have the possibility to be cured from cancer in the most advanced way and with the best perspectives to overcome this illness. Unfortunately, a much larger number of children, who could not choose time and place of their birth have very bad conditions for their treatment.

In our country, the oldest and the youngest ones were affected most by the years of sanctions and the decreasing economy. One should also have in mind that 600.000 refugees, people who had been expelled from Croatia and Bosnia, came to our country. It was necessary to receive them, to feed and cure them. But all that was done at the expenses of our social security system. Among all, there are thousands of parentless children.

Our organization, established 6 years ago, is doing its best to help both parents and sick children during their stay in the hospital. Through the media and through personal contacts, we organize concerts and similar fund raising events, we collect financial means for buying the equipment, the medication and other necessary materials fot the ward. We are now preparing a booth near the hospital where we will sell a variety of hand crafted things made by the children and their mothers. But all that is insufficient to cover even the elementary needs of the pediatric oncology department at the Institute for Oncology and Radiology of Serbia.

About 350 new cases of children (age 0-18) suffering from malignant diseases are registered each year in Yugoslavia. In our department 120 to 130 new cases of solid tumors in children are treated every year. Most of those children are diagnosed to have brain tumors, tumors of the kidneys, the eyes or the bones, soft tissue or gonadal tumors. The newest principles of surgery, radio therapy, and chemotherapy are applied in the treatment.

The biggest obstacles during the treatment, however, are the lack of cytotoxic drugs and the so-called supportive therapy. Nor do we have a monitor for intensive care patients to control their vital functions such as pulse, blood pressure, heart beat and saturation of blood oxygen. For long term intravenous injections we would need catheters such as port-a-caths, and our department would need a mobile electro cardiograph. We will not be able to buy these things from our small amount of donations. Thus, we would highly appreciate any help we could get.