A thoughtful card can do a lot of good—both by cheering someone up and starting an important conversation.
Cheer Cards is a project created by Oracle Volunteers based in India where participants create colorful cards to give to breast cancer patients and display on hospital walls in various cities. Many cards are adorned with a folded pink ribbon, the international symbol for breast cancer awareness. Pink, yellow, purple, and other colors of paper are embellished with messages, such as “You are a Superwoman,” and “Fight strong.” Others have hand-drawn roses and star stickers.
The initiative has offered emotional support to breast cancer patients throughout the country and opened conversations about an issue that is not widely discussed. Mumbai-based Aegon Life Insurance stated that Indian society has deemed several aspects of human physicality as taboo, creating obstacles for free discourse on breast cancer. In a 2017 survey that Aegon Life distributed to 500 participants across the country’s major metro cities, half the women surveyed agreed that factors such as the secrecy surrounding menstruation and sexuality may serve as a hindrance to openly talking about such diseases.
“The emotional journey of an individual is so important,” says Dr. Kamal Deep Peter, senior manager of corporate citizenship at Oracle India. “We wanted to create a feeling of emotional support to cancer patients. So we thought let’s create handmade cards with a message of positivity and hope, and once a person opens it, there is a reason for them to smile and feel they’re not alone.”
Bringing light to the discussion
The project was created in collaboration with the Indian Cancer Society, the country’s first voluntary nonprofit promoting awareness, detection, cure, and survivorship of those impacted by the disease. The organization is responsible for providing access to centers for cancer detection, platforms to share cancer research and information, and funds for the treatment of patients across India.
Oracle’s Dr. Kamal Peter began coordinating the Cheer Cards project in 2020 by networking with oncologists and researching nongovernmental organizations to potentially partner with. After gauging the interest in sharing these cards with the community, Kamal Peter has now seen more than 600 cards made and delivered with the support of more than 65 volunteers and several project leaders in different cities throughout India. With no in-person contact during the pandemic, the cards have served as a token of warmth during such isolation.
Beyond becoming a source of goodwill, the distribution of the cards into the hands of patients and onto the walls of hospitals has also brought more visibility to breast cancer as a topic of conversation that affects many.
According to the Indian Cancer Society, breast cancer is the most common cancer amongst women in urban India and the second most common in rural India. They also share that one in 28 women in India are likely to develop breast cancer. But, as Kamal Peter has shared in her posts on LinkedIn, the conversation surrounding breast cancer has not been prevalent due to the “sexuality” that the culturally conservative society associates with women’s bodies.
“It’s a kind of hush hush feeling,” says Kamal Peter of discussing breast cancer. “There is a lot of stigma still attached to cancer. But we found it touches the hearts of many people.”
Cheer Cards aim to relieve communities of such taboos by sending patients words of strength, resiliency, and bravery. The hope is that the positive messaging will ease any reservations patients have about publicly discussing breast cancer with their family, friends, and community. Kamal Peter says the spread of this awareness can help encourage more individuals to get doctor’s checkups and educate themselves about matters related to cancer, such as early signs and treatment.
As someone who has survived breast cancer, Kamal Peter signs her cards as a fellow survivor. She says it’s the one thing she wants to tell patients so they can be inspired to not hide their own stories. “If you come out and give your story of hope to others, then others can believe that they will come out of it,” says Kamal Peter. “No one should fight cancer alone.”
No one out of reach
Kamal Peter says the Cheer Cards project has even reached other areas of India where Oracle offices are not located. Cards of thanks and gratitude are also made for doctors and nurses.
Garima Jani, Oracle quality assurance analyst and Cheer Cards project leader says the colorful cards with encouraging words are an uplifting contrast to the typically dull walls of hospital rooms and hallways.
In the past, Garima has participated in other similar campaigns knowing that there was not much awareness of breast cancer in her area.
“That is what made me say ‘Yes, I want to do this project,’” says Garima. “After getting all the cards and seeing the messages, you can see it’s so positive and supportive for people we don’t even know.”
Garima finds volunteers to craft the cards through social media. Vikram Sharma, consulting member of the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure technical staff, is another project leader who connects with volunteers via Slack. While collecting cards to send to hospitals, both Garima and Sharma have also seen the relatives and friends of Oracle Volunteers join the efforts to make them.
For Sharma, seeing firsthand how cancer has affected people in his own life connected him closer to the project.
“Personally, I was not very aware,” says Sharma. “During the course of this project, I came to know what the symptoms are and what to be careful about. I think this is a very good impact that we could make on society.”
In some cases, messages from patients who received a card are sent back to Kamal Peter. She recalls one recipient who said once they recovered, they planned to work in medical fields related to cancer.
“The stories coming out from the chemotherapy wards need not be of gloom and despair,” says Kamal Peter. “They can be stories of survivorship. Medical science has advanced a lot. An early diagnosis is a win-win situation for all.”