Our programmes
We are not a hospital, and we do not treat cancer. What we do is help people face it — through awareness, free screening, training, and support for patients and their families.
Running Now
Awareness sessions
We bring oncologists and researchers to community halls, hospitals, workplaces and colleges to talk plainly about cancer — what raises risk, which cancers can be caught early, and how to read the body’s warning signs. Sessions end with an open question-and-answer, and often a quiz.
Request a session for your organisation →
Cancer awareness through kirtan
Most people avoid a lecture about cancer. Dr Shekhar Kulkarni, a breast cancer surgeon from Pune, solved that by setting cancer awareness to kirtan — the traditional Marathi form of musical devotional discourse. In Ponda in May 2025, in surgeon’s scrubs and a traditional pagadi, he held an over-capacity hall for two and a half hours, using a Marathi verse in which each letter decodes to a cancer warning sign. It reaches people a lecture never could.
Host or sponsor a kirtan across Maharashtra & Goa →
Screening camps
We organise free camps that bring qualified doctors to places where screening rarely reaches — screening women for breast and cervical cancer and, since Poladpur, men and women for oral cancer. Screening is carried out by clinicians from partner institutions, most recently Tata Memorial Centre’s Centre for Cancer Epidemiology.
Host a camp in your village, society or workplace →
Volunteer training
Awareness work is only as good as the people delivering it. In October 2025, Tata Memorial Centre trained and certified 54 of our volunteers over two days, including hands-on practice in clinical breast examination and cervical swab collection. A further ten were sponsored to a cervical cancer workshop at Deenanath Mangeshkar Hospital.
Join as a volunteer →
Patient support group
Some things are easier to say to people who already understand. Our patient support group met for the first time in March 2026, with eight members sharing their experiences of treatment, insurance and caregiving. It now meets monthly. We are keeping it small while we learn what people most need from it.
Join or find out more →
Youth & tobacco awareness
Smokeless tobacco — gutka, khaini, masheri — is the largest single preventable cause of cancer in India, and habits form young. At Poladpur we ran a session and quiz for middle-school students on the health effects of tobacco, and we intend to expand this work in schools.
Schools, host a session →
Information & publications
Dr Ram Datar’s Marathi guide to cancer — written for people with no medical background — is given free at our sessions. We maintain free lending libraries of JASCAP’s cancer booklets in Thane, Pune and Ponda, publish our newsletter PRACHI Spandan, and carry cancer information in English and Marathi on this website.
Read our resources →
What we’re building
These services are designed and staffed but not yet fully running. We’d rather under-promise to a donor than over-promise to a patient — so here is exactly where each stands.
Tobacco de-addiction & cessation
In partnership with Tata Memorial Centre’s Tobacco Cessation Clinic, we are training volunteers and working toward community cessation support, including the national quitline.
A research wing
Led by our advisor and director Dr Anushree Vartak, to ground our work in evidence.
Survivor & quality-of-life sessions
Bringing survivors together and supporting life during and after treatment.
Cancer prevention centres
Permanent community bases for awareness, screening and guidance.
Patient guidance & navigation
Helping patients and families find the right hospitals, understand costs, and access second opinions.
Second medical opinions
Pointing patients to trusted, evidence-based second-opinion services from Tata Memorial Centre and the National Cancer Grid.
Bring PRACHI to your community
We’re already receiving requests from workplaces, societies and community groups. If you can gather people, we can bring the doctors.