Diffuse Midline Glioma (DMG) is an extremely aggressive, fast-growing tumour and after diagnosis, most children die within two years. Currently, there is no effective treatment for DMG, so we are extremely proud to donate £60,000 to Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital Charity to co-fund the first-of-its-kind clinical trial for up to 12 patients with DMG, using CAR-T cells. This donation also marked our first collaboration with Abbie’s Army, who has been relentless in the fight against DMG.

With Azaylia’s second birthday in August, and Childhood Cancer Awareness month and The Azaylia Foundation’s first year anniversary – Ashley took on another epic challenge to carry Azaylia’s name across Europe and raise awareness for childhood cancer, which was featured on ITV’s Good Morning Britain. Cycling from London to Paris, onto Geneva before crossing the Alps into Italy and finally arriving in Rome mid-September, another inspiring and gruelling challenge in the name of Azaylia and all children fighting cancer.

Our founder, Ashley, marked Azaylia’s second birthday by running an incredible five marathons in five days across the five capital cities of the UK and Ireland. He pushed himself to the limit, physically and emotionally, during this special time, while raising awareness and funds for childhood cancer. In true form, our community came out to support Ashley and the team every step of the way from Dublin to Belfast, Edinburgh, Cardiff and finally London. Thank you, you are fundamental to this fight against childhood cancer.

Sit Down with Safiyya is our Instagram series which navigates through grief, mutual support and challenges while fighting childhood cancer. Through a live conversation format, Safiyya meets with other parents, childhood cancer charities and medical experts.

Episodes can be found on the @azayliafoundation Instagram profile.

On Tuesday, April 26, thanks to the hard work of Charlotte Fairall of Sophie’s Legacy, Parliament heard new evidence that childhood cancer is not rare, alongside a call for creating a new childhood cancer mission to complement the Government’s existing 10 year cancer plan, which currently does not adequately address childhood cancer.

The Azaylia Foundation supported Sophie’s Legacy by helping to create awareness around the debate, which our CEO attended in person. We worked with our community to send their MPs the template emails we provided, in the first instance to encourage MPs to attend the debate, and in a second instance to highlight the shortfalls of the Government’s response during the debate and to demand change.

Over 3000 emails were sent to MPs as a result of this campaign, many replied to their constituents stating they had written to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care requesting clarification and further action.

Due to a systemic underfunding of childhood cancer, children in the UK are regularly given treatments developed for adults, often leaving them with life long damage even in the case of survival.

We are beyond honoured to announce that we have donated £101,850 to the University of Oxford’s Department of Paediatrics, to fund the Scientific Advances for Infant Leukaemia (SAIL) programme, a collaboration between the University of Oxford and Great Ormond Street Hospital, to research the development of new, personalised children treatments for acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL), and to create a roadmap for all types of leukaemia.

Azaylia’s Wall (Nuneaton) to Trafalgar Square (London), 109 miles.

A tough physical and emotional journey for Ashley and family to commemorate Azaylia’s anniversary with the community, while at the same time raising awareness at a time when it is so important for everyone – government, institutions, media and the public – to understand that childhood cancer is not rare and is significantly underfunded.

Our incredible community carried the team (Ashley, Matty and Tamika) with words of encouragement and unbelievable energy every step of the way. Safiyya joined on her bicycle for 50 miles, and over 500 people greeted them on arrival at Trafalgar Square. All gear, equipment and vehicles for this challenge were either loaned or donated to the team.

We are so thrilled to officially announce our collection with In The Style, who will be donating 100% of the profits to The Azaylia Foundation.

This capsule collection of positive and empowering quotes comes in 6 designs, inspired by Safiyya, which are available in sizes 6-28 for adults and 1-12 for kids.

To see the collection, please click here to visit In The Style.

We thought long and hard about how we could commemorate the month of April. It has been a year since Azaylia’s passing and we wanted to give everyone the opportunity to help us mark this month in the most powerful and unified way.

We are so proud to announce our first community powered campaign, Wear Orange for Azaylia, to raise awareness and funds for childhood cancer. For this campaign we provided our wonderful community with all the tools needed to plan & execute a non-uniform day at their local school. Over one hundred schools and day care centres signed up to participate within a week of launching the campaign, and Safiyya visited schools in her local area to meet children and discuss positivity and mutual support.

Any organisation can participate, to do so just click on this link or email info@azaylia.org for more information.

Abbott Lyon released a new line of jewellery including The Azaylia Foundation necklace, a beautiful limited edition design inspired by Safiyya.

Available on a name your price basis (£20 to £100) and with 100% of the profits going to the foundation, this was a wonderful way to support the fight against childhood cancer with much needed funding.