Parents who lost a child to cancer raise funds to help others

Einat Dado Baralia founded the "Shir Lachaim" (Shir, also 'song,' for Life) organization together with her husband Asaf and some friends, after the death of her son Shir at the end of a one-year-long struggle with neuroblastoma cancer when he was only two years and three months old.

"We will help to find a breakthrough and will work to change the fate of children with Neuroblastoma all around the world," Einat said.

Raising awareness about neuroblastoma 

Shir for Life aims to raise awareness about the horrible illness, since if it is discovered early, a lot of lives can be saved. Additionally, the organization wants to advance groundbreaking research and is thus kickstarting a crowdfunding campaign today to further its goals.

"The goal is to raise NIS one million for actions in Israel, the US and other places around the world, for the next children," Dado Baralia said.

"My magical Shir was always smiling, a strong child and despite all he had to suffer, he was filled with a never-ending happiness which kept us sane and strong," she said regarding the hard year of treatments and attempts to save her son's life.

"After treatments at Rambam hospital [in Haifa], we immediately continued to treatments in New York and Philadelphia but the illness was discovered in a late phase, and after a struggle Shir died."

After this, she understood that there is a need for more help with research.

According to her, "There is a market failure in that there isn't a lot of awareness of the illness and there aren't enough sources for funding. We can't let that cost the lives of more children."

Dado Baralia makes it clear that the goal is to change the fate of children with neuroblastoma cancer in a number of ways: Finding and funding the best under-funded research to bring about a breakthrough; raising awareness among parents and doctors, in order to diagnose sick children as early as possible; and create collaborations through improving knowledge of neuroblastoma in Israel.