Poonam Bagai

Bagai worked as a civil servant and was living in Warsaw, Poland, with her husband and two sons when, at the age of 38 in 2000, she was diagnosed with colon cancer. Her treatment involved three operations, nine cycles of chemotherapy and a colostomy. She has said that during her treatment she resolved that if she survived she would return to India and work for children with cancer.

Bagai founded CanKids in 2004 under the Delhi branch of the Indian Cancer Society, together with Sonal Sharma, whose daughter had been diagnosed with cancer at the age of two. The organisation separated from the Indian Cancer Society in June 2012 and was registered as an independent national society.

CanKids works on access to treatment, financial and nutritional support, accommodation, counselling and follow-up care for children with cancer. Its main programme, YANA (You Are Not Alone), provides support to children and their families. The organisation works in partnership with cancer centres, hospitals and state governments, with which it has signed memoranda of understanding, and by 2022 was present in 122 hospitals across India and had supported around 60,000 children. It has a network of more than 300 volunteers and staff.

Bagai has also served as vice-chairman of Pallium India, and is a patient advocate on the KOODAC team funded by Cancer Grand Challenges.

Bagai has received the Nargis Dutt Cancer Conqueror Award, the Indira Gandhi Priyadarshini Award and the Karmaveer Maharatna award, and in 2021 a Woman Leader in Social Impact award.[2][3][4][5]