Each time a cancer patient undergoes chemotherapy, within 20 days he/she loses all his/her hair. And while society, to some extent, is acceptable towards bald men, women cancer survivors don’t have it easy.

A hair donor from Jalandhar

This realisation struck Dubai-based Premi Mathew when someone close to her was diagnosed with cancer. “She lost all her hair in 20 days; it was horrifying,” she recalls.

But it was only after Mathew met a six-year-old boy from Kerala, Dylan who grew his hair for four years to help victims of hair loss that she decided to launch Hair for Hope — India in June 2013 in Kerala. This campaign inspires people to donate hair (minimum of 15-inches long) to create wigs for cancer patients.