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Who we are
Fundación Aladina is a non-profit private entity that focuses on helping children and teenagers with cancer and their families through enhancing their emotional and material well-being.
Our main goal is to improve the quality of life of children with cancer and their families to help them cope with this terrible illness with as much dignity as possible. A number of studies have proven that caring for the "soul", as well as for the body, has visible results, often shortening hospital stays.
Fundación Aladina through its activities and its team of volunteers, provides counseling and uses therapeutic play to help children and teens to learn to cope with their illness and situation without losing their happiness and will to get better.
Fundación Aladina is a private entity, not part of any political or religious group. It is registered in the Ministerio de Trabajo y Asuntos Sociales with number 28- 1378.
Founder's letter
Hello.
Over six years ago, I got involved in ASION (Asociación Infantil
Oncológica de la Comunidad de Madrid), as a voluntary worker
in the Niño Jesús Hospital. Each Wednesday I would spend two
hours playing games together with children suffering from cancer
and helping this fabulous association.
One day I started to visit the different bedrooms and began to
make friends with the families and other children, many of them
teenagers, who were unable or unwilling to go to the games
room. That moment changed my life: what was once a one day
a week event became an almost daily activity.
These years have given me the experience to fully understand
the needs of an oncology ward inside a hospital. Everyone, from
the children, their parents, to family members and nurses, needs
real support. The great news is that helping, and in a very
significant way, is very easy. That is why I decided to set up my
own foundation, Fundación Aladina.
¡Ala...Dina! was a very successful Television series I created and produced for TVE, starring Paz Padilla. It was about a lamp genie that hadn't studied her magic lessons too well, and was thus a complete disaster when it came to using her magic powers. I gave the foundation that name for three reasons: children used to love the show, as did their families, and… above all, it had magic. Lots of magic!
That is the message I would like to convey through this foundation; that magic and miracles exist. But since miracles sometimes take time to happen, in the meantime, the Fundación Aladina will try to make the time spent in hospital as bearable as possible.
Much suffering, and much crying, is done. The battles are long and hard, and some are lost, but in the end, what remains from this hard experience is love and affection.
Paco Arango
