Donating hair to those who really need it

Hope for Hair launched its campaign this Saturday, raising hair for cancer patients facing hair loss.

"I was very touched by the idea. Your hair, especially for a woman, is a very intimate part of your body. The idea of donating this to someone who really needs it touched me very much."

Arwa Charif (20) from Tunesia donated her 35 cm long hair at the JetSet Altitude Salon this Saturday, one evening before she left the country where she had lived for the past five years. The tribute is surely received with gratitude, as the Hope for Hair-campaign intends to collect as much hair as possible.

"Did you ever have a nightmare in which you woke up without hair?" asks Lola Lopez, who is organizing the campaign. "For many cancer patients this is not a dream.”

Hope for Hair is a charity event raising hair for cancer patients who are undergoing chemotherapy, a treatment attacking cancerous cells in the body. As this treatment is likely to affect the healthy cells too, chemotherapy often results in hair loss.

"Especially for women, hair loss is a terrible experience. Hair induces self-esteem, a sense of sexiness," Lola says. "In combination with the vulnerable stage cancer patients are already going through, losing hair can lead to severe psychological problems."

A suitable solution for the loss of hair would be wearing a wig, and this is indeed what many chemotherapy patients intend to do. However, costs of these wigs can be tremendously high. “An average wig costs around 3000 dirham,” says Lola, and there are many people who cannot afford to spend this money.

Hope for Hair therefore raises human hair, and sends it off to professional wigmakers dedicated to providing chemotherapy patients the wigs they otherwise cannot afford.  A partner initiative of Volunteer Dubai and Protect your Mum, it introduced the idea to the UAE with the launch of the campaign this Saturday.

Raising hair in the UAE

“The idea is entirely new here. We need to raise awareness first.” Eighteen months ago, Lola was not even convinced of launching the campaign in the UAE. “In the Middle East, short hair is not as commonly accepted as it is in the west,” she explains. “It is very important for women here to have nice long hair, and they will not easily get rid of it.”

But, Lola was not alone in thinking about it. Premi Matthews of the Protect your Mom-campaign was the fifth in a row to approach Lola with the idea, after which the two ladies joined forces and decided to give it a try.

“Don’t get me wrong, I think every woman in the world deserves to have hair,” says Lola. “But, actually I believe that hair from the Middle East should stay in the Middle East.”

The hair that the volunteers of Hope for Hair are hoping to collect will be sent to the US, where wigmaker Beautiful Length will use it to make wigs for local chemotherapy patients. This is a shame, thinks Lola, because the local demand is high.

 “I think there are about 25 people receiving chemotherapy every day, and most of them are women,” she says.

“Unfortunately, we have not yet found a wigmaker willing to donate time and effort to this cause in the UAE,” she explains. Although negotiations are held with the King Hussein Cancer Center Jordan and a wigmaker in Lebanon, for now the hair collected here will be donated to cancer patients in the US.

This Saturday 48 people donated their hair at JetSet Altitude Salon.  “We were amazed by the success, ad this tells us it really can work in the UAE,” says Lola, but she adds: “It was just a start, and we are hoping that people will continue to donate their hair at the salon from now on.”

Not all kinds of hair are suitable to donate. It needs to be at least 15 cm long and it should never have been died, Lola explains. However, everyone can support the cause. “If your hair is not suitable for donation, you can pay for a haircut, and the JetSet Altitude Salon will donate all they receive to Hope for Hair,” she adds.

For those who are donating hair, the cut is free of charge.

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