Twenty years ago, pediatric cancer was an incurable disease in Vietnam. The disease claimed many children's lives at that time. To improve this situation and save precious lives, Ms. Kazuyo Watanabe has provided medical support to pediatric cancer care centers in Asia for free since 2005, mainly at the Hue Central Hospital in Hue, Vietnam.

Ms. Watanabe's first encounter with Vietnam was a movie she watched when she was in junior high or high school in the United States. She was very moved by the movie, which was based on a true story about US soldiers saving children who became orphans due to the Vietnam War. She found a job at a foreign financial institution after graduating from a university in Japan. However, she left this job about four years later to become more involved with people and in activities. For about a year starting in 1995, she volunteered at the Japanese Association of Supporting Streetchildren's Home in Vietnam, a Japanese organization carrying out activities to save homeless children in Hue, Vietnam. During her experience as a volunteer, she established a connection with Hue Central Hospital. She then returned to Japan to provide nursing care to her father. While visiting the hospital, she began helping out at a domestic pediatric cancer support group. Seeing the disparity between healthcare in Japan and in developing countries in Asia, Ms. Watanabe wanted strongly to support Vietnamese children and decided to play a significant role in supporting them. Thinking about what she would need as person who was not a medical professional, she studied for four years at a graduate school in Japan beginning in April 2000, and became a certified social worker. After establishing the Asian Children's Care League non-profit organization in 2005, she left Japan for Vietnam and began activities at Hue Central Hospital.

There are many reasons why children are unable receive appropriate treatment, such as an inadequate medical environment, delayed diagnosis or treatment or economic reasons. The NPO's support activities include both medical care and social welfare. In the realm of medical care, they focus on developing medical human resources and improving the care environment. To enable people to understand that pediatric cancer is curable, they work as a bridge between academic societies and medical professionals in Hue, coordinate training, supply pharmaceutical products, provide meals and manage nutrition within the hospital, maintain medical devices and hold workshops. They contributed to the improvement of the level of medical care. Funded by Japan, a bioclean room was built five years ago.

Regarding social welfare, they provide financial support to patients and their families, set up family meetings within the hospital to communicate information about the side effects of treatment and the risk of infections to patients and their families, and sometimes visit patients' houses to understand patients and their families and support and encourage them. They also hold events to make the lives of cancer patients undergoing treatment a little more enjoyable. They provide grief care to the bereaved after a child passes away, and hold memorial services every few years. They provide a broad range of support services in cooperation with medical experts from Japan and other countries. Although Ms. Watanabe says that she is working as a bridge, she stays at the hospital to spend time with the children. These activities have borne fruit: the five-year survival rate for children diagnosed with acute lymphatic leukemia has improved to about 70% from around 10% when the activities first started. Local children, their families, and medical staff call her their mother from Japan. She became an honorary citizen of Hue in 2024. "Reunions with grown-up children who've completed their treatment are blissful moments for me," said Ms. Watanabe.

To date, the network of medical experts has expanded to over ten countries, including Japan, the United States, Singapore, Australia, Italy, Germany and India. They provide support to surroundings countries such as Cambodia and Laos as well.

Over 20 years, these support activities have led to the five-year survival rate to increase to 70% when it was previously around 10%. It is moving. We wonder how many children's lives they have saved. We admire their on-site approach and the power of Ms. Watanabe to act. Without this approach, this support would not have materialized. We have had a renewed sense of the importance of how important it is to see a place with your own eyes. Ms. Watanabe stays at the hospital to spend time together with the children when she is in Vietnam. She earns a living by working as a lecturer at a university. Her sprit of affection and selfless service is admirable.