Showcase of Bladder Cancer Awareness Month Grant Awardees

The Forum’s spotlight on Bladder Cancer Awareness Month (BCAM) Grants celebrated grassroots ingenuity from four continents—showing how small awards can spark big, community-led impact. With live Spanish interpretation available via Wordly, participants heard how each awardee is closing awareness gaps, mobilising allies, and bringing information where it’s needed most.

Malawi: One Community (Wisdom Zunguzungu)
One Community turned a modest grant into a nationwide push for knowledge. Building on its village-based volunteer network, the team trained 120+ lead and community volunteers, launched door-to-door (“teaching while walking”) visits, and ran open-air awareness sessions across Lilongwe and the Northern Region. A hotline and radio outreachhelped residents recognise symptoms and understand when—and where—to seek care. In total, 300+ people were directly engaged in the first wave, with trained volunteers now cascading sessions that continue to multiply the reach. The focus remained firmly non-biomedical: equip communities with clear, practical information and connect them to formal services early.

Argentina: VICARE GU (Fiorella Gagliardi)
In Argentina, around 3,000 new cases of bladder cancer are reported each year. Behind these numbers are patients and families—particularly women, who often experience delayed diagnosis. VICARE GU works to raise awareness, provide emotional support, and advocate for improved care. With support from the Coalition, VICARE GU organised the second International Virtual Congress of Bladder Cancer Patients and expanded its Patient Platform, which brings together specialists from urology, oncology, psychology, and nutrition to offer holistic support. The organisation also launched the “Conscious Walk”, a biannual event promoting physical and emotional well-being, and continued awareness campaigns focused on symptom recognition and early detection. “Every life we accompany is worth all the effort,” said Fiorella.

Colombia: FUPROCER (Óscar Rodríguez)
A bladder cancer survivor and natural storyteller, Rodríguez founded FUPROCER and the “Proyector Cáncer”YouTube series to amplify patient voices. His approach is simple and powerful: interviews with patients, nurses, and clinicians that turn lived experience into guidance others can use. By normalising conversation and sharing journeys—across cancers, not just bladder—FUPROCER is reducing stigma, improving symptom literacy, and creating an online library patients can bring to their next appointment. Call-to-action tools (including donation QR codes) help sustain the content and expand reach.

Kenya: Desert Scorpions F.C. (Charles Ogada)
In northern Kenya, football is a shared language—and Desert Scorpions F.C. is using it to talk about bladder cancer. During BCAM, the club ran pitch-side activations and community briefings that carried awareness from the stadium into homes. Working alongside Kenya’s Social Health Authority, the team spotlights entitlements to cancer services and is developing a digital micro-donation feature within the Football Kenya Federation platform to channel a small percentage of transactions to patient support. The message is as practical as it is hopeful: know the symptoms, seek help early, and no one fights alone.

Together, these four projects show what BCAM grants are designed to do: meet people where they are in villages, clinics, community halls, YouTube feeds, and football grounds and turn awareness into earlier help-seeking and better outcomes.