Since 2011, Banco Santander has earmarked a total of €420,000 through “Euros from your Salary” to projects of various NGOs to support research and therapeutic development for children and their families.

Through their social media, employees at the bank’s corporate centre have joined the tribute created by the Fundación Juegaterapia foundation to support children fighting cancer #ByeByeChemo

Madrid, 15 February 2022.
Thanks to the contributions made by Banco Santander employees in the “Euros from Your Salary” programme, Santander works with numerous NGOs and foundations in the fight against paediatric cancer. Since this initiative was launched 16 years ago, Santander has allocated €423,458 to various projects proposed and partly funded by employees. These projects are also funded by the bank, which matches the amount contributed by the employees who have joined the fight against paediatric cancer and who support research and therapeutic development.

The winning initiatives in the 2021 edition of “Euros from Your Salary” include projects proposed by El Sueño De Vicky, which aims to rehabilitate children with brain tumours, Fundación Pequeño Deseo, which seeks to provide emotional support to 65 children suffering from cancer by granting them a wish, as a means to generate positive emotions that have a direct impact on their well-being and physical improvement.

In addition to these projects, Santander has worked with other NGOs and foundations, winners of previous editions, which give emotional support to children suffering from the disease and their families, which include: Asión which provides direct psychological support to sick children; Niños con Cáncer which encourages adolescents to share their social and emotional needs; and Fundación Abracadabra which organizes magic workshops in hospitals that improve the mood and therapeutic state of many children.

Santander has also worked with projects that are focused on the development of research such as: Fundación Intheos which seeks new treatments for paediatric cancer for the children for whom there is no therapy since the first diagnosis or who have not responded well to conventional chemotherapy; Asociación Pablo Ugarte which provides immunovirotherapy against paediatric osteosarcoma; the project developed with Fundación Josep Carreras, in its research to find treatments to overcome drug resistance in infants with pro-B acute lymphoblastic leukemia; the project with Unoentrecienmil, to enable Spanish medical researchers to complete their training with the best international professionals and then apply their knowledge when they return to Spain; and Fundación Aladina, which has a hospice care programme for children with cancer.

The donations made have contributed to important research such as that recently carried out by the CSIC (the Spanish National Research Council) on the origin of paediatric leukaemia, which was funded by Fundación Unoentrecienmil, one of the winning NGOs in the 2016 edition of “Euros from Your Salary”.

Tribute to support children fighting cancer

As well as financial support, the bank’s employees also contribute with other voluntary actions and solidarity actions such as that carried out at Santander Group City in Boadilla del Monte, where employees have joined the Fundación Juegaterapia #Byebyechemo campaign. This campaign aims to represent the emotions felt by children and their families on the “last day of chemo”. To symbolize that farewell to cancer, Santander employees have uploaded photos and videos of themselves waving handkerchiefs to their social media accounts under the hashtag #ByeByeChemo.

Santander has been working with Fundación Juegaterapia foundation for five years. This foundation helps children with cancer through play. It collects video consoles that people no longer use and hands them out around the paediatric wards in Spanish hospitals so that children can play during their chemotherapy sessions and forget about their illness. It has already handed out consoles in 76 hospitals around Spain.

All these collaborations are in addition to the close relationship that, for years, Santander has had with the AECC, one of Spain's leading organizations in the fight against cancer, with which it collaborates through numerous initiatives such as the Redondeo Solidario, a project where the funds raised go to the AECC's Comprehensive Care for Women with Breast Cancer programme; the Senior and Cancer programme for the comprehensive care of patients over 65 years of age and their families, or various sports initiatives to raise funds around Spain.