Cuddles Foundation

Cuddles Foundation is India’s only NGO focusing on providing nutrition to cancer

afflicted children belonging to low income families. In alliance with Tata Memorial
Hospital, it started operations in 2012 to help children fighting cancer by
providing them with the best Nutritional supplements and nutrition for aiding
their recovery.
Cuddles Foundation work with government and charity cancer hospitals every
day. Childhood cancer is mostly curable across the world. But in India, with up to
40% of children with cancer being malnourished at diagnosis, survival is a huge
problem. Cuddles Foundation is on a mission to change that through their Food
Heals program. They give children undergoing cancer therapy at over 30
government and charity hospitals access to trained clinical paediatric nutritionists,
expert dietary counsels, supplements, in-meals, hot meals, monthly ration
baskets and caregiver support. Good food helps the medicine work.
Cuddles Foundation won some awards along the way too. This includes the
National Award for Child Welfare in 2015-16 from the Hon’ble President of India
and the Special Jury Mention at the Outlook Poshan Awards in 2019.
They provide children undergoing treatment with food, hot meals, nutritional
supplements and ration baskets as per their requirements so that the kids have
the strength to fight their cancer. Till date, they have partnered with 35 hospitals
in 20 cities. In 2017, with the help of individual donors, volunteers and the
Cuddles Advisory Board, they were able to develop an app that would standardise
the delivery of nutritional support across all the hospitals they work. The Cuddles
Food Heals app is the first of its kind platform that helps automate mathematical
functions for a nutritionist – like calculating the grade of malnourishment, BMI,
calorie deficiency, etc. The app also aids her in counselling, diet planning and
mapping progress of the child through the course of the treatment.