Apply Now for 2024 CRC Health Equity Grants

The 2024 CRC Health Equity Grants application is now open, April 1 - May 15!

The GCCA CRC Health Equity Grants program seeks to provide financial assistance to fill specific unmet needs in underserved communities around the world. Priority is given to members in low-and middle-income countries (LMIC) that build an evidence-based impact, design and test solutions, or interventions. Other examples of funded projects may include exploring local needs, validating feasibility of activities, and testing initial ideas.

In 2023, GCCA awarded grants to 9 recipients in 7 countries for the following projects:

• Instituto Oncoguia, in Brazil, hosted an event at their annual Oncoguia Policy Forum to highlight service and access inequalities and challenges faced by patients living with colorectal cancer from diagnosis to treatment and care.
• Niola Cancer Care Foundation, in Nigeria, held its annual health education event, Ijoya, which uses dance, exercise, and wellness talks to promote CRC awareness. Addressing issues of access disparities, they offered free and subsidized CRC screening tests through Ijoya, mobile screening through a “Bowel Screening Bus”, and supplies for CRC patients, like ostomy bags and disposable gloves.
• SAID NGO, in Lebanon, fully financed 32 diagnostic colonoscopies for patients who had a positive FIT screening to address equity problems in access to colonoscopy.
• Tanzania Oncology Society held a colorectal cancer session at the Tanzania International Cancer Conference, providing a forum for multidisciplinary collaboration, contributing to healthcare professional knowledge, and addressing health disparities in CRC screening, treatment, and care.
• Institute for Gastroenterologic Tumors, inCroatia, provided support from nutritionists and psychologists to patients suffering from gastrointestinal tumors. Their investment in prehabilitation care aims to increase survivorship of CRC.
• Project PINK BLUE is creating a documentary short film called "Blood in MyStool" on the health inequities in colorectal cancer control in Nigeria.Through the stories of Nigerian CRC patients, they are putting a face to colorectal cancer to advance awareness, knowledge, and communication about access to CRC screening.
• St. Cyril Cancer Treatment Foundation implemented a program called Every Colon Matters through which they are promoting colon cancer awareness, as well as financed 70 FOBT screening tests and indicated diagnostic colonoscopies for Nigerians living in low- and middle-income communities.
• WOCACA carried out a needs assessment of CRC prevention, screening, treatment, and survivorship in the Lilongwe District of Malawi and developed a policy brief for advocacy and awareness building.
• The Cyprus Association of Cancer Patients and Friends developed and administered a training course on stoma care to oncology nurses. By improving the quality of oncology nursing care, they improved stoma patient self-care education and, therefore, quality of life.

You can hear from 5 of the recipients of the 2023 CRC Health Equity Grants in a video where they share information about their organizations, and detail how the grant has helped them to advance health equity in their communities.

All GCCA members are eligible to apply for a CRC Health Equity Grant, and membership fees are only applied to corporate members. To learn more about membership and apply to join our more than 100 members, please visit globalcca.org/membership.