Daijiworld News Network - Mumbai (SS)
with inputs from ANI
Exclusive pics by Rons Bantwal

Mumbai, Feb 19: Thousands of children joined celebrities and cancer patients in a marathon run to raise funds for cancer research here on Sunday.The "Terry Fox Run", also known as the "Marathon of Hope," is the largest single-day fund-raiser for cancer research in the world.

Flagged off by High Commissioner of Canada, David Malone, the event saw the participation of over 5000 children from 30 schools.

"Well, it's tremendously significant because it raises money for cancer research. India is a leader in research and Indians are very devoted to research on public health and this has made a significant contribution. These kids have raised a lot of money, the corporate community in Mumbai has raised lot of money too and it's a collective effort in support of a better life for those afflicted with cancer particularly when they are young," said Malone.

Television personality Raageshwari, film actor Jackie Shroff and south Indian actress Nagma were among the celebrities who ran to raise funds."Actually, just running this exercise for children to become emotionally intelligent because I feel that especially in our times today, children are very impressionable and they need to be taught all these wonderful things and wonderful stories will not create that vacuum where emotional intelligence is concerned," said Raageshwari.

Terry Fox, a Canadian national, lost his leg to cancer as a youth.

In 1980, he decided to run across Canada, a distance of more than 8,000 kilometres, in a bid to draw attention to the cause of raising funds for cancer research.

Fox covered a distance of 26 miles every day and ran for 143 days before his death in 1981, while he was halfway through the run.

But by that time, he could collect 24.17 million Canadian dollars, a figure that matched 24 million Canadians.

The people of Canada decided to honour him by symbolically completing his run for him every year.

Each year hundreds of caring people all over the world gather for similar runs and to date more than 400 million dollars has been raised worldwide for cancer research.