Onkobis is a project that was created by the efforts of kindhearted volunteers, allowing game-age kids with cancer to ride a bike like their peers during this tough struggle.
The kid is always a kid whether they are in the middle of a struggle or cancer patients. Children with cancer can find themselves in the middle of a war-like struggle. During the treatment, many children are condemned to the bed and in fact they cannot live their childhood ...
Onkobis, which was launched by the cooperation of many warmhearted volunteers and institutions on the initiative of the Association of Cancer Fighters, is a serum hanging bicycle project that has emerged for children with cancer to ride a bike like their peers- as their peers do.
Cyclist volunteers donated
Aslı Ortakmaç, the president of the Association of Cancer Fighters, explains the emergence and development of the project as follows: "Serum hanging bicycle idea emerged with the e-mail sent by volunteer nurse Gülşah Taşkın working in child oncology service in Ankara. Gülşah Nurse wanted children to get treatment by playing games without chaining in bed in the hospital. At this point, we, as Cancer Fighters, get to work on the Onkobis project by considering the safety and health of the children in the guidance of the experts concerned. Meanwhile, a group of volunteer cyclists joined GBI's (Global Biking Initiative) Vienna-Berlin cycling organization and raised international donation and awareness campaigns for our project. "
However, though the project and budget are ready, they have not found a producer who believes in serum bike project for a long time. But one day, they came up with a solution when one of the volunteers learned that the person they met at a business occasion was from the Aslı Bike. The Aslı Bike supported the project during the whole process and 60 Onco-bike were produced in the first stage. This first production was distributed to hospitals in different cities.
Second stage production is on the way
Aslı Ortakmaç describes the purpose and the new goals of the project as follows: "With this project, we want to help our young children continue their movement throughout the treatment in hospital services, helping to reduce their condemnation to the bed. Thus, we aim to ensure that these children, who are still in the age of play can ride their bikes, socialize and prevent them from detaching themselves from society during treatment process of such a tough struggle. Our goal is to maintain our project and increase the numbers of these bikes and to benefit even more children from Onkobis. The hospitals have already begun to communicate with us for the distributions to be made in the second production. After reaching a certain figure, we are going to realize the second part of the production and reach more children.
According to the information we received from the Cancer Fighters Association, childhood cancers are hundred times less common than adult cancers. In other words, only 2-4 percent of all cancers occur in childhood. According to statistics, cancer is developing in 120 out of 1 million children every year in the world. Childhood cancers occur most often in the first 5 years and in the 10-15 age group. In our country and around the world, 30% of the cancers seen in childhood form leukemia. Among the remaining cancer types, Hodgkin and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma is the second most common cancer in our country. Nervous system tumors, neuroblastoma, Wilms tumor and soft tissue sarcomas are also among the cancers confronted.
