Stiftung zur Förderung der Knochenmarktransplantation Schweiz - SFK

About us

The SFK was founded by a private initiative in 1994, arising out of personal affliction. It is exempt from tax and offers help available practically round the clock to children and young people suffering from bone marrow cancer and their families by offering advice and aid.

Objective
• The SFK has set itself a declared objective: Without exception, every healthy adult in our country should ask himself this serious question at least once in his life: Might not the gift of life enrich the life of the donor as well as the recipient?
• Let's not forget one thing: Each of us can be affected by this condition at any time and would be glad for there to be a large number of donors available in our country, too.
• The SFK wants you as a donor: We want you to enlighten and inform you, facilitate your decision and keep in touch with you by sending you newsletters with experience reports of donors and recipients of lifesaving stem cells.

Activities:
• The SFK cares for patients and their families. The lack of information on voluntary bone marrow donation in our humanitarian country is a cause of concern and worrisome, given how many sufferers there are.
• The SFK informs patients and the public about the possibilities, limitations and technical resources of a bone marrow transplant. Those concerned are faced with an important decision which raises hopes, but also fears. The general population harbours misconceptions with unfounded fears - but also premature hopes.
• The SFK's film "Gift of Life" enables patients who are undergoing bone marrow transplantation and their families to familiarize themselves with the possibilities, the limitations and the practice of this high-tech treatment. The film is also used to inform voluntary bone marrow donors, as well as an interested audience at presentations.
• SFK motivated voluntary bone marrow donors. By informing the public, we seek to increase their willingness to donate bone marrow and stem cells. When searching for compatible unrelated donors, the state gives us access to international registers of donors – about 20 million of them – via the Swiss register of bone marrow donors. To participate in this worldwide network, we Swiss people have to make our contribution. The database must be constantly updated in Bern with new donors. This is mainly because donors who registered more than ten years ago, then not yet 55 years old, are removed from the register after reaching their 60th birthday. In addition, various restrictions within our public health system reduce the number of donors, which is low in any case.
• With the help of the media and leaflets, SFK informs interested parties about the possibility of becoming bone marrow or stem cell donors.
• SFK organizes charity cultural and sports events.
• SFK gives hours of desperately needed enjoyment to hundreds of cancer patients and people waiting for a donor organ with their annual summer meeting and fairytale performances in the Christmas season.
• SFK cares for patients and their families through psycho-social care.
• SFK has built a network of self-help groups "SOS Leukemia & Multiple Myeloma" in seven cantons, with one goal: none of the parties concerned should feel left alone.

Candy Heberlein is the President and founder of SFK – The Swiss Bone Marrow Trnsplantation Foundation.

On request we can offer other net participants advice, give a presentation, and provide up-to-date information and contacts in the field of our work.