Hi, my name is Maricla Pannocchia, I'm from Italy (to be precise, from beautiful Tuscany), I'm a writer and the founder and chairman of the charity Adolescenti e cancro (Teens and Cancer) which offers free peer to peer and social support to teenagers and young adults who have or have had cancer and we also work a lot to bring much needed awareness about the issues surrounding the childhood cancer world (first of them all, the lack of funding towards childhood cancer research).
I've always loved writing and in 2014 I self-published my first book "La mia amica ebrea" (My Jewish friend) which sheds a light on the lives of the everyday heroes during WWII, the Germans who helped the Jewish. In the same year I wrote a novel about teenage cancer, showing the friendship among two teenage girls, one of which with leaukaemia (the novel has been published in 2017 by Italian publishing house Astro Edizioni). I didn't really know anything about childhood or teenage cancer so I started researching for this book and that's how I ended up listening to videos made by foreigner young people with cancer and I was blown away by them.
Even though I have always written about social topics, I was pretty sure I wouldn't been able to complete that novel because I'd need to spend many hours listening to sad stories featuring young people suffering and then dying. I though that was all that cancer is; sadness, fear, pain, death. Was I wrong! Yes, of course those stories talked about pain (in its many different ways), fear, death and so on but what stood out was this young people's resilience and love for life. And that is a kind of life that's so different from the lives most people lead; from the life I was leading back then. I wasn't a bad person, on the contrary, I've always been sensitive about social issues and did my bit of volunteering, but I didn't have any life goal, anything I felt drawed to.
My life didn't change in the blink of an eye. After self-publishing the novel, I decided I wanted to to something to help these young people so I set up a website where they could get in touch via email with other teenagers or young adults with cancer so they could share their journey with others their own age who could understand them. From there, the charity quickly grew and more and more young people signed up for our programs. We now offer various free initiatives like two activity stays each year, free days out, free holidays with their families and I also work hard to spread awareness about this cause. This is because, prior to writing my novel, I didn't really know anything about childhood cancer but what I saw on TV or read on the newspapers, which was very little; I sometimes heard of young people passing from cancer, so they were sad stories, or on the contrary I've seen imagines of pretty, bald teens and children having fun in a summer camp but these are just two opposite sides of a very complex story.
So, I want to help people to understand what is really going on in the childhood cancer world and that is why I use my charity's Facebook page to post real life stories as well as articles from serious sources so that people can easily follow my charity's Facebook page to be updated on the cause without any hassle of searching for the news themselves.
I was especially shocked when I discovered that childhood cancer research is severly underfunded. I run my charity for about one year and a half before getting to know about it. This is because this is not an issue we often hear about and I first discovered it through foreigner Facebook groups set up by childhood cancer families. Anyway, when I read about this, I was outraged. We're talking about our kids and young people, our future, and yet we are failing them because childhood cancer is considered "rare" so it's not seen as an area that could generate profits and they prefer to invest in adult cancers that affect more people. This means that our kids and young people are often treated with old, harsh treatment plans that often cause short or long term side effects like secondary cancers, infertility, etc and some of the "rarest" cancers still have poor prognosis.
That's why through my charity I've organized various initiatives to bring awareness about the cause, including an online photograph exhibition which encloses stories and photos of children and teenagers from various Countries and a short film called "The child who fades away", which is in English, and that I wanted to produce so badly to bring awareness about DIPG (diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma), a brain tumour that affects children almost exclusively and for which there is no cure. Being considered "rare", there have been no real progresses in its treatment and no advances towards a cure in more than 50 years. Average survival rate is 9 months from diagnosis. I've published the short film, which is about 5 minutes, on my charity's Facebook page so everyone can watch it for free and share the awareness (click here to watch it).
In January 2020 I released a book called "Ascoltami ora - storie di bambini e ragazzi oncologici" (Listen to me now - stories of children and teenagers with cancer) that encloses various stories from the childhood cancer world, written directly by the young people or their families. Its ultimate goal is the one I've got for every project I run: to give these people a voice and, at the same time, to bring awareness about the reality of childhood and teenage cancer.
I feel very blessed to have had this life journey; most people don't know what their purpose in this life is, others spend their whole lives in the search of it, yet I now know what I will be doing with my life, right until the end. Luckily, I've never experience cancer myself, nor my loved ones, so I feel really privileged to have these amazing people trusting me and my projects and allowing me to enter into their lives and share a part of their journey. These young people taught me the most important life lessons; we often think we know them, we think we know what really matters, but in our daily lives it's so easy to lose focus and concentrate on the unimportant things.
Because of the young people, their families and the experiences I've made with my charity I now live a happy, fullfilled life, and I'm not afraid of death anymore.
Of course, everything is not rosey, but I have a goal and I know my mission here is to support these young people and their families and be a voice for them.
I also like travelling, writing (of course!), reading, acting in theatre and going to the beach.
I'm keen to collaborate with anyone interested in bringing childhood cancer awareness so if you'd love to get in touch please send an email to [email protected]
Thank you!
Maricla
I've always loved writing and in 2014 I self-published my first book "La mia amica ebrea" (My Jewish friend) which sheds a light on the lives of the everyday heroes during WWII, the Germans who helped the Jewish. In the same year I wrote a novel about teenage cancer, showing the friendship among two teenage girls, one of which with leaukaemia (the novel has been published in 2017 by Italian publishing house Astro Edizioni). I didn't really know anything about childhood or teenage cancer so I started researching for this book and that's how I ended up listening to videos made by foreigner young people with cancer and I was blown away by them.
Even though I have always written about social topics, I was pretty sure I wouldn't been able to complete that novel because I'd need to spend many hours listening to sad stories featuring young people suffering and then dying. I though that was all that cancer is; sadness, fear, pain, death. Was I wrong! Yes, of course those stories talked about pain (in its many different ways), fear, death and so on but what stood out was this young people's resilience and love for life. And that is a kind of life that's so different from the lives most people lead; from the life I was leading back then. I wasn't a bad person, on the contrary, I've always been sensitive about social issues and did my bit of volunteering, but I didn't have any life goal, anything I felt drawed to.
My life didn't change in the blink of an eye. After self-publishing the novel, I decided I wanted to to something to help these young people so I set up a website where they could get in touch via email with other teenagers or young adults with cancer so they could share their journey with others their own age who could understand them. From there, the charity quickly grew and more and more young people signed up for our programs. We now offer various free initiatives like two activity stays each year, free days out, free holidays with their families and I also work hard to spread awareness about this cause. This is because, prior to writing my novel, I didn't really know anything about childhood cancer but what I saw on TV or read on the newspapers, which was very little; I sometimes heard of young people passing from cancer, so they were sad stories, or on the contrary I've seen imagines of pretty, bald teens and children having fun in a summer camp but these are just two opposite sides of a very complex story.
So, I want to help people to understand what is really going on in the childhood cancer world and that is why I use my charity's Facebook page to post real life stories as well as articles from serious sources so that people can easily follow my charity's Facebook page to be updated on the cause without any hassle of searching for the news themselves.
I was especially shocked when I discovered that childhood cancer research is severly underfunded. I run my charity for about one year and a half before getting to know about it. This is because this is not an issue we often hear about and I first discovered it through foreigner Facebook groups set up by childhood cancer families. Anyway, when I read about this, I was outraged. We're talking about our kids and young people, our future, and yet we are failing them because childhood cancer is considered "rare" so it's not seen as an area that could generate profits and they prefer to invest in adult cancers that affect more people. This means that our kids and young people are often treated with old, harsh treatment plans that often cause short or long term side effects like secondary cancers, infertility, etc and some of the "rarest" cancers still have poor prognosis.
That's why through my charity I've organized various initiatives to bring awareness about the cause, including an online photograph exhibition which encloses stories and photos of children and teenagers from various Countries and a short film called "The child who fades away", which is in English, and that I wanted to produce so badly to bring awareness about DIPG (diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma), a brain tumour that affects children almost exclusively and for which there is no cure. Being considered "rare", there have been no real progresses in its treatment and no advances towards a cure in more than 50 years. Average survival rate is 9 months from diagnosis. I've published the short film, which is about 5 minutes, on my charity's Facebook page so everyone can watch it for free and share the awareness (click here to watch it).
In January 2020 I released a book called "Ascoltami ora - storie di bambini e ragazzi oncologici" (Listen to me now - stories of children and teenagers with cancer) that encloses various stories from the childhood cancer world, written directly by the young people or their families. Its ultimate goal is the one I've got for every project I run: to give these people a voice and, at the same time, to bring awareness about the reality of childhood and teenage cancer.
I feel very blessed to have had this life journey; most people don't know what their purpose in this life is, others spend their whole lives in the search of it, yet I now know what I will be doing with my life, right until the end. Luckily, I've never experience cancer myself, nor my loved ones, so I feel really privileged to have these amazing people trusting me and my projects and allowing me to enter into their lives and share a part of their journey. These young people taught me the most important life lessons; we often think we know them, we think we know what really matters, but in our daily lives it's so easy to lose focus and concentrate on the unimportant things.
Because of the young people, their families and the experiences I've made with my charity I now live a happy, fullfilled life, and I'm not afraid of death anymore.
Of course, everything is not rosey, but I have a goal and I know my mission here is to support these young people and their families and be a voice for them.
I also like travelling, writing (of course!), reading, acting in theatre and going to the beach.
I'm keen to collaborate with anyone interested in bringing childhood cancer awareness so if you'd love to get in touch please send an email to [email protected]
Thank you!
Maricla