10 Mumbai kids who survived cancer win medals at World Children's Winners Games

Mumbai school students, who beat cancer, bag gold, silver at World Children’s Winners Games for young survivors.

Seven school children from Mumbai who are also cancer survivors have won gold and silver medals at the World Children’s Winners Games held in Moscow from July 4-7. A total of 10 students from the country in the age group of 7-16 years bagged medals at the annual games, which are for young cancer survivors.

Tata Memorial Hospital’s ImPaCCT (Improving Paediatric Cancer Care and Treatment) Foundation, where the children have been seeking treatment, encouraged them to enter the games, and trained and sponsored them.

Ameeta Bhatia, volunteer social worker at the hospital’s paediatric department, who accompanied the children to Moscow, said the hospital took up the initiative with the aim to build their lost confidence.

“During treatment, many lose confidence in themselves; others lose an academic year, or fall behind their peers and don’t do well in studies because of the pain and trauma. Some stop talking to family members and generally withdraw from life. They believe they can’t do anything. They also sometimes harbour the fear that if they participate in sports, they will fall sick. After they come back from the event, they become more open and active and also start participating in school competitions,” Bhatia told Mirror.


The hospital has been sending children who are cancer survivors for the games since 2014. However, this year saw a comparatively high number of gold medals and it is also the second time after 2015 that all the 10 participants won at some level. In addition to seven golds, three other Mumbai students – Harsh Devgharkar, Anant Tiwari and Preeti Nag – won silver medals in rifle shooting, football and chess, respectively. From outside the city, Atharva Deshmukh from Satara won a silver in football and bronze in chess, Aronyatesh Ganguly from West Bengal won gold in table tennis and Hritik Allamanda from Bangalore won gold in swimming and silver in chess. The winners won in different age categories and teams of boys and girls.

Juhu resident Santosh Devgharkar vouched for the impact the competition had on his son Harsh. “Harsh was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia when he was two-and-ahalf years old. The treatment, including chemotherapy, took three years. Initially when he started school, he refused to study and would say he did not want to do anything. When he saw a child drown in a pool while practising, he got scared and refused to go. But the family encouraged him. Now, he is excited about school.”