The year 1989 was filled with too many unforgettable events.  The new arrival in my family livened up our lives naturally.  Yet the baby girl’s crying and the never-ending house chores that came with a newborn child turned us into nervous wrecks.  Despite it all, no parents could resist the innocence of a child.  The baby’s smiling eyes and the touch of her little hands made all things right.   

A parent’s job is to guide and protect his or her child.  While it is a tall wish to aspire to great fame and fortune for the child, praying for the child’s healthy growth and happiness is the most basic parental inclination.  Alas, fortune does not always look upon all families kindly; some unfortunate families have to go through the ordeal of having a cancer-stricken child.  

“Why does it have to be my baby?”  “Are the parents to blame?”  “Why…Where can we turn for help?”  “What’re we going to do?”

If there is no proper relief, this series of questions would only work up more doubts and feelings of helplessness.  Worse still, one could be seized by great despair to the extent of thinking there is no hope in the future.  

Thanks to the warm invitation of Terry (Ms Terry Lai), I joined the Children’s Cancer Foundation with a grateful heart and embarked on an amazing journey.  Now that I have earned the venerable title of Uncle Lam at CCF and look back at the birth of the Foundation some 30 years ago, I marvel at how I plunged into the project with blind courage.  First of all, I did not know what childhood cancer was all about.  I over-rated my ability and under-estimated the hardship and challenges in founding a self-help organisation in the community.  It was no easy task running a charity solely on donation, yet maintaining professionalism and providing quality, comprehensive family services at the same time.  Nevertheless, the facts speak for themselves.  And when the founder members devoted themselves selflessly and wholeheartedly to the Foundation, a miracle happened right before our eyes.

Peter Lam
Founder Governor