2½ years without my eldest daughter, Amani.

Ravaged by brain cancer for the last 22 months of her life. The most aggressive cancer, Glioblastoma, took root in her brain in 2020 and took her life so brutally and so devastatingly in 2022.

The trauma of it that illness has robbed me of being able to remember my Amani before she was ill and even the Amani when she was ill. My brain has mostly switched off to it all as a means of protection from the reality. But I crave to remember her smell, her touch and her presence.

In the absence of Amani in our lives, we are left with connecting with the trails of her life that she left behind. This is why we continue to fundraise in her name. To keep her alive and to keep the causes that she was so passionate about alive too.

Brain cancer is the biggest killer of children and adults under 40 yet it receives only a mere 1% of cancer research funding. The rate of diagnoses is increasing yet the policy for under investment stays the same. So while we see more and more families receiving this devastating diagnosis the standard treatment in UK has not changed in decades and Glioblastoma remains with a 0% chance of survival.

More needs to be done but if the Government won't stand up for families like ours then we need to try and do our part instead. Please help by donating if you can and sharing amongst your networks. Together we can make a difference.

Brain Tumour Research funds research at their 5 Centres of Excellence. The money raised from this fundraiser and the entire Luton Walk of Hope event will specifically fund GBM research at The Blizzard Institute at Queen Mary University, London.

Fight4Hope has been set up as a Brain Tumour Research Fundraising Group by Amani and her family to help raise as much money as they possibly can to help fund brain cancer research. The Luton Walk of Hope was first organised in 2021 when Amani addressed the crowd so beautifully. We now painfully continue these events without her by our side but in honour of the glorious and courageous battle she fought.