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The Septembre en OR movement
Once a year, the world goes GOLDEN for International Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. It's September in GOLD.
In the same way as pink October for breast cancer, Septembre en OR aims to raise public awareness of childhood cancer. The symbolic color for childhood cancer is golden yellow. The GOLDEN SEPTEMBER movement is an international movement that we launched in the French-speaking part of Switzerland in 2013. Since then, Geneva's water jet has been lit up in GOLD on the first Friday in September. Our GOLD ribbon flags adorn the Mont-Blanc bridge in Geneva. Our banners decorate the city of Lausanne, and this year public transport in Lausanne and Geneva will also be supporting our cause.
The aim of this campaign is to make as many people as possible aware of childhood cancer. It also aims to raise funds to support research, with a single goal in mind:
Healing more children and healing them better.
Our volunteers made over 25,000 GOLD ribbons, which they dropped off at over 500 partner stores. All over French-speaking Switzerland and into German-speaking Switzerland.
Gold ribbons are sold at the symbolic price of CHF 1. The money raised will be used to fund a research project carefully chosen by us.
In 2020, at the height of the pandemic, we raised an incredible CHF 80,000! Thanks to this sum, we were able to help fund a European study into the relapse of retinoblastoma (eye cancer) in children. We were also able to provide additional support to our partner, the Swiss Pediatric Oncology Group.
Thanks to all of you, our volunteers, participating businesses and all those who buy your GOLD ribbon or make a donation on this occasion, we've been turning September into GOLD for the past 8 years!
For 2021, public transport in Lausanne and Geneva will also be relaying the Zoé4life message on the occasion of Septembre en OR. The smiling face of this young boy suffering from cancer will be visible on the buses and inside them. A message of hopeso that one day all children will have the chance to heal.
Childhood cancer continues to affect between 250 and 300 children under the age of 19 every year, and while 80% of children recover, only 3% of them will recover without sequelae. Every week in Switzerland, a child dies of cancer.
