"I could never have imagined that one split second would change my life forever"

I could never have imagined that one split second would change my life forever. Hi folks! I’m Harmala Gupta. I live in New Delhi, India, and this is where I started my life anew as a cancer survivor after a diagnosis of Hodgkin’s lymphoma. It’s been 25 years since I had cancer and 16 years since I founded ‘CanSupport’.

Today, more than 850 people living with cancer are being visited in their homes by our trained teams that include a doctor, a nurse and a counselor. We run the largest, free, home-based palliative care service in India. It covers the entire territory of our national capital and surrounding areas; a combined population of almost 20 million people. Our volunteers also run a Day Care and support groups for children, teenagers and adults under treatment. We just held a very successful ‘Walk for Life’, an annual event that brings people together in the hope that one day cancer will be history.

On this Women’s Day, all of us at CanSupport (the majority of whom are women!) rededicate ourselves to the vision we have of a caring and supportive society where people with cancer and their families live with dignity, hope and comfort.