How Magda Iskander’s Mission to Care With Love Inspires Hope for Children With Cancer

“I never wanted to be a doctor,” she says. “I wanted to be a musician.” Growing up in the south of Egypt in Assiut, Iskander went to an American mission school and did so well that she was put forward to study medicine, leaving her with no other choice. “I told my mother if I fail any test, that’s it,” she says. But she never failed and before she knew it, she took a qualifying exam to continue her specialization in the U.S.

The notion of following her destiny is prevalent in Iskander’s impressive life story. “I went to the embassy with my brother,” she remembers. “They gave us an immigration visa application form which asked for the reason for my application. I had no reason, so my brother wrote ‘immigration’ and two weeks later, I received the visa.” She laughs. “It’s as if it was meant to be.” Iskander trained in Chicago and became a radiologist, asserting herself as the only Egyptian doctor at Cook County Hospital at the time.

Care with Love

After leaving Egypt in 1976, Iskander returned in 1984, defying people’s predictions that once she had left for the U.S., she would stay there. “I wanted to pay back to my country where I’d studied medicine for free,” she says. “If I taught one person what I’d learned in the U.S., I’d feel that I had earned it.” One of the many things Iskander brought to Egypt was to start diagnostic ultrasound centers to train physicians, after she discovered that they were not widely available.

In 1988, she moved back to the U.S., but returned again to Egypt in 1994 to volunteer in a rehab program for drug addicts, thinking that she would only stay for one year. “One year led to many years, and now I’m still here,” Iskander says with a smile. She now divides her time between both countries.

When her mother fell ill, Iskander couldn’t find an adequate home healthcare provider to help her while she was at work, so she trained one herself. Iskander’s philosophy of care requires people to “make the decision to love.” The curriculum she created at Care with Love, founded in 1996, centers around five core values: love, humility, accountability, honesty and accepting the other.

Trainees at Care with Love spend two weeks practicing the NGO’s core values, before getting to sign a contract and beginning the official four months-long training course which includes an ethics curriculum that was approved by Muslim and Christian scholars and clergy. The NGO trains and services Egyptians of all faiths.

Iskander recounts an incident when Care with Love was training a group of Sudanese nurses — many of whom moved on to work abroad — and faced difficulties placing them in a medical facility for their field practice, because of their skin color.

“A very respectable acquaintance of mine told me ‘They don’t look good.’ He shocked me with his comment,” she says. Consequently, she decided to register Care with Love as an NGO, so that she could work with different facilities that aligned with her core values.

Health and Hope Oasis

As an NGO, Care with Love sustains itself by offering affordable caregiving services. It also provides training for the caregivers working at Health and Hope Oasis, located in Wadi El Natrun, a valley 100 kilometers (62 miles) north of Cairo.

Iskander describes the approach to healing at Health and Hope Oasis as the “triangle of care:” nutrition, hygiene for infection control, and emotional well-being. “Doctors in Egypt don’t provide parents with much information regarding hygiene for infection control or well-balanced nutrition for a child with cancer,” she says. “So we do that at the Health and Hope Oasis. Many people don’t know that the Egyptian diet is very balanced. You don’t have to be rich to eat well. And you don’t have to force a child to eat something they don’t want to eat.”

The Health and Hope Oasis is fully funded by Egyptians and completely free for all children with cancer and their families. “Egyptians are very generous,” says Iskander, recounting a series of miracles that brought the project into being through the support of a wide group of people and organizations. “We didn’t have much money, but I told [my co-founders] ‘let’s just start,’” says Iskander. “And money came in along the way.”

When Iskander asked a young monk from the neighboring monastery for help, he was initially irritated by her many questions. “I told him to come and see our project, instead of explaining everything and then we do it wrong,” she says. “When he saw what we were building, he asked, ‘You’re doing this for poor people and they’re not paying money? I’m going to help you!’”

Planning for the grounds began in 2002. During the project’s first phase, 60 housing units, a water tower, an educational kitchen, and two multipurpose rooms were built on land that had been donated. This was completed in 2012. The second phase, overshadowed by the COVID-19 pandemic, saw Health and Hope Oasis add a football field. Now, in stage three, the children have been given a bicycle track, a fountain, and a resident turtle.

“Sometimes we couldn’t find donations, but we never stopped hosting kids,” says Iskander. “Everything always falls into place.” I ask her why she thinks that is, and she says, “I think that God is on our side. And people respond to kindness.”

Amidst acres of fresh fruit and vegetables, the simple housing units and shared facilities are safe for people with weak immune systems. Murals of magic animals are painted all over the vicinity which is adorned with colorful tiles.

“Kids recover, grow up, and then come back to volunteer with us,” says Iskander and shares the story of a 10-year-old boy who asked for a job at the Health and Hope Oasis, because he didn’t want to leave. This motivates the team to continue overcoming challenges such as getting the people they train to stay and work on the project, attracting volunteers and ensuring salaries and a steady income of donations. Iskander doesn’t mind the hard work as long as she manages to “put a smile on a child’s face.”