I remember starting the Road to Care project 13-years ago thinking, “We can make this work”. Indeed, together, through our combined gifts, we’ve helped over 1,000 women receive life-saving radiotherapy treatment for cervical cancer.

In 2019, I met Marie*, a Road to Care patient who received radiation treatment back in 2011, and now lives cancer-free. Marie is now a healthy, vibrant 51-year-old volunteer, comes to one of Road to Care’s referral sites (Mobile Hospice Mbarara) regularly to give peer-to-peer support to newly diagnosed women, sharing with them that they too can be cured by getting radiotherapy treatment. To those newly diagnosed patients, she is living proof that there is hope!

Because of patients like Marie, we’ve seen a dramatic shift in the patient population we are now sending for curative treatment from the rural regions of Uganda. The message is spreading that cervical cancer is curable. We have a decade of survivors telling their stories to their neighbours about how they triumphed over this surmountable disease. Patients are seeking care earlier, now that they are being told there is this funded pathway called Road to Care that will help them get cured.

In 2020, Road to Care began operating a radiotherapy lodge to provide accommodations for 15 patients at a time. By 2022, this first lodge was regularly hosting over 20 patients at a time, so In October 2022, Road to Care opened a second radiotherapy lodge to ensure that all women have a place to stay during their chemoradiotherapy treatment. We can now provide accommodations for 37 patients at time, making Road to Care the largest provider of cost-free accommodations for patients undergoing radiotherapy in Uganda.

The future is looking brighter. Thank you so much for your support. We will be asking for your assistance again this year to help us continue this impactful project. Every $470 CAD we raise helps cure someone like Marie; someone who will go on to spread hope in her community.  

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Joda Kuk
Founder and Chair of Road to Care