In June 2017 we received a submission on our website asking us to help a Syrian refugee family who had recently arrived in the UK with a very sick 5-year-old boy urgently needing treatment for Rhabdomyosarcoma – cancer of the soft tissue.

 

The family had fled the war in Syria leaving  everything they owned and everyone they loved behind. They arrived in the UK with nothing more than the clothes they stood up in.

 

They are a family of five, mother and father, and three boys. The oldest and the youngest both have Fragile X Syndrome – a genetic condition that causes learning difficulties – severe in the case of the oldest child.

 

They were moved several times before appropriate accommodation was found for them in North London. But they had no furniture, no extra clothes or money to pay for food and travel to see their son in hospital. Through their CLIC-Sargent social worker at the Royal Marsden we made an initial grant of £1,000 to cover their most urgent needs.

 

Over the past year we have been able to provide more money for food, clothes and travel, and items for their home including a TV, iPad, microwave, pots and pans and other essentials.  The treatment for cancer came to an end this year and the whole family, enjoyed a wonderful week at one of our caravans in Selsey, West Sussex.

 

Miracles help and support is ongoing, we recently bought  bikes for the boys . To learn more about this family’s flight from Syria please read their blog post here.