Ten highlights for ten years: Advocacy and awareness
2025-04-18
Owen's third highlight for his ten-year celebrations at The Kids' Cancer Project explores the advocacy and awareness work undertaken in the past decade by The Kids' Cancer Project.
The Kids’ Cancer Project was founded on a promise made by one man who vowed to never give up until every child survives cancer with minimal or no long-term effects. Col Reynolds OAM is that man.
1993 marked the inception of The Kids’ Cancer Project, but it was initially focused on cancer care. In the years that followed, Col learned that research was the only way to help children with cancer. 32 years later, I am proud to lead The Kids’ Cancer Project as a national leader in childhood cancer research who fund the most promising pioneering research projects across Australia so we can help Col keep that promise.
Over one million Australians have supported The Kids’ Cancer Project since its founding. Thanks to this continued community support, we have committed to expanding our research allocation each year, resulting in over $75 million in childhood cancer research investment. 32 years on, Col’s determination still inspires us all every day.
I attribute my passion for The Kids’ Cancer Project to Col, as well as my own experience with friends and families fighting childhood cancer. The opportunity to meet so many children and parents that have unfortunately encountered a childhood cancer diagnosis has left an indelible mark and has reinforced my belief in the importance of childhood cancer research, and the need to find better treatments for these kids.
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During my tenure as CEO, I’ve sought to bring international awareness days and months to Australia in a bid to increase recognition of childhood cancer. We hosted Australia’s inaugural Curefest, a national event giving children with cancer a voice, in 2016 alongside Truth 365 Australia and 22 likeminded childhood cancer charities.
September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month where we raise awareness around the impact of childhood cancer, including the heartbreaking statistic that every day across Australia three families will hear the words ‘your child has cancer’ and each week three children will die of cancer.
In 2017 The Kids’ Cancer Project focus shifted to promoting Childhood Cancer Awareness Month celebrations across the month of September and it is now a month that is firmly circled on the calendar for research institutes, government agencies and fellow charities across Australia.
The Sydney Opera House sails were lit gold to mark the start of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month and included a candlelight vigil brought together families, friends, and supporters to honour children affected by cancer with Alex Wright and Reuben Winder bravely sharing their personal stories.
A Tribute Wall video displayed images and messages from families featuring children in treatment, survivors, and those who have sadly passed away. The evening was one of quiet reflection, unity, and remembrance, reinforcing the shared hope that every child survives childhood cancer.
In 2018, 14 iconic landmarks across Australia turned gold in 2018 to help raise awareness and 12 months later, 950 gold child-like silhouettes were installed on the lawn of Parliament House to represent the number of children diagnosed with cancer each year. In honour of Brooke Fretwell, who passed away from brain cancer at age 15. Brooke’s parents, Karl and Olivia, spoke of the importance of investing in childhood cancer advocate for increased funding in childhood cancer research.
This strong advocacy led to an extra $9 million commitment from the Health Minister Greg Hunt as part of the Federal Budget into competitive research grants aimed at paediatrics, adolescents and young adults that supercharged cancer research by supporting bold innovative science supporting the 950 kids diagnosed in Australia every year. The funding had a direct impact on children and their families while simultaneously supporting the finest medical research minds and futureproofing childhood cancer research.
In 2019 The Kids Cancer Project worked with Cancer Australia and the Health Minister for Health, Greg Hunt, to launch the 26th of September as Australia’s annual Childhood Brain Cancer Awareness Day. The aim of creating such a day is to raise public awareness of the impact of childhood brain cancer on patients, family and carers and to highlight the importance of childhood brain cancer research.
In 2021 we launched the Better Challenge as our key advocacy program in September as part of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, encouraging everyday Australians to complete 3km for the 3 kids diagnosed with childhood cancer every day. Since its launch, Better Challenge has raised over $1.9 million for vital kids’ cancer research via some 7,200 participants.
The 15th February is International Childhood Cancer Day, a global collaborative campaign to raise awareness about childhood cancer, and to express support for children and adolescents with cancer, the survivors and their families. In line with this, The Kids’ Cancer Project launched our inaugural national awareness campaign K’day, which has seen over $1.5 million raised for childhood cancer research and our awareness campaign has reached over 4,000,000 Australians.
Advocacy and awareness have laid the platform for our significant investment into childhood cancer research. It will remain at the heart of our mission to change the future for kids with cancer.
Highlight #4 coming soon!
Help me in my quest to raise $100,000. That's $10 for each the 10,000 kids that have been diagnosed with cancer over my 10-year tenure.