About the fund

Founded in 2004, the International Retinoblastoma Daisy Fund (IRDF) is named after Daisy Lloyd,a child from the United Kingdom diagnosed with a rare type of eye cancer.

Daisy required specialized treatment at the Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) in Toronto, Canada, that was unavailable at home. Daisy's parents established The Daisy Fund to help raise funds to cover costs when she traveled from the United Kingdom to Canada.

In October 2004, in Botswana (southern Africa) a young girl named Gorata (Rati) had a rare recurrence of retinoblastoma.  

The family of this little 3 year-old girl was given little hope of effective treatment in Botswana. At this point, we established the International Retinoblastoma Daisy Fund in Canada and the United Kingdom.

Thanks to the IRDF, Rati and her family were able to travel from her home in Francistown to SickKids to receive medical care. To date, we have assisted children across four continents - Europe, North America, Asia, and Africa.

The IRDF mission is to facilitate optimal care for all children diagnosed with retinoblastoma. We support diverse projects that will achieve this goal.
Our strength is the worldwide collaboration of health care professionals, parent and patients, scientists and other persons concerned about retinoblastoma.

Our projects include research in global retinoblastoma, multi-center rigorous clinical trials to advance therapy and co-ordination of access for children to the most appropriate medical centre that can provide the needed care, closest to where the family lives. Our long-term goal is to achieve sustainable, locally-administered diagnosis and treatment programs for retinoblastoma, optimized for diverse parts of the world.

The IRDF is an independent charity in England (Registered Charity Number: 111-11-33), and a designated fund within the Charitable Foundation of Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children (Charitable Business Number: 10808-4419- RR0001)