Students run 'Marathon of Hope' for cancer patients in Mumbai

Mumbai, Feb 14(ANI): Hundreds of school children participated in a cancer awareness run organized by the Canadian-based Terry Fox Foundation in Mumbai on Sunday.

The 'Terry Fox Run' also known as the 'Marathon of Hope' is the largest single-day fund-raiser for cancer research in the world.

This year, children from 45 schools of the city ran in the marathon to raise funds for cancer patients and for the research project carried out at the Tata Memorial Hospital in Mumbai.

The marathon was flagged off by Mumbai Police Commissioner D. Sivanandan from the Trident Hotel in the city.

"Through this event, whatever money is collected is spent on cancer research. Today for the event, cancer patients have come from the Tata Memorial Hospital, have come to attend the event thus making it a very special day, particularly in view of cancer, and that it is a very deadly disease. The entire life of the patient and their families gets completely ruined. This is why medical funding and research is necessary," said Sivanandan.

The event concluded at the Brabourne Stadium in Mumbai and celebrities like actress Tara Sharma also came out to support the cause.

Gul Kriplani, an organiser of the marathon, said that the run aims to spread the message that cancer is curable.

"The sole aim of the committee in India and all over the world is to spread the message that cancer can be cured. Terry ran the 'Marathon of Hope' to spread the message of hope. Therefore I want to tell the children suffering from cancer here that there is hope. It is not that there is no hope and cancer is incurable," said Kriplani.

Terry Fox was a Canadian humanitarian, who was suffering from bone cancer. In 1980, he decided to run across Canada, in spite of having one prosthetic leg, in a bid to draw attention to the cause of raising funds for cancer research.

Fox covered a distance of 26 miles every day and ran for 143 days before his death in 1981, while he was halfway through the run.

The people of Canada decided to honour him by symbolically completing his run for him every year. (ANI)