Cancer survivor from Sowerby Bridge aiming to help others through Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust

Georgia Leslie, 20, from Sowerby Bridge, was diagnosed with osteosarcoma in 2020, a type of bone cancer in her ribcage. She embarked on a transformational sailing adventure two years later with the Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust, which aims to inspire young people living through and beyond cancer to believe in a brighter future through sailing and outdoor activities.

After making friends for life on that first four-day sailing trip from Largs on Scotland's west coast, she returned for further support in 2023, before joining its Youth Advisory Group.

She said: “After treatment I struggled living with the aftermath of cancer and didn’t know how to cope, but going on these trips really helped me gain comfort and understanding in life after cancer. They helped me realise I will never be back to the person I was before, but that’s ok, because me now is perfect too.

“I want other people to also realise this and help them gain understanding of themselves in life after cancer, as I don’t think it’s spoken about enough. Every young person with cancer should get an opportunity to do these trips because it helped me beyond words.”

The charity’s influential Youth Advisory Group amplifies the voices of young people, and puts them at the heart of its decision making, to help shape the impact of the Trust and the delivery of its sailing and outdoor adventure trips. Its members provide vital insight into how the charity can be more visible and relevant to more young people.

Recently, the group has fed into the charity’s strategic goals for 2023-2025, aided in its understanding of what young people of different ages want from trips, and influenced its approach to chronic fatigue on sailing and outdoor adventures.

After her first trip in 2022, Georgia said: "I do get a lot of pain in my back. It sometimes affects my walking and sometimes I get dead legs, so when the boat was moving a lot, it felt like I couldn't feel them. But I feel more independent after this trip. I didn't think I could actually do as much on a boat as I have done, especially mobility wise, getting around the yacht. It made me realise I actually can do it."

The Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust takes young people aged 8-24 on sailing and outdoor adventures to inspire them to believe in a brighter future living through and beyond cancer.

A cancer diagnosis can have a big impact on a young person’s mental wellbeing beyond treatment, and what happens afterwards can often be as difficult as treatment itself - if not even more so. This is not understood or talked about as much as it should be, leading young people to feel like they are the only one finding life after cancer just as hard.

Cancer in young people often leads to lower educational achievement, relationship and friendship difficulties, body image issues, and/or ongoing late effects, such as extreme fatigue, infertility, osteoporosis, thyroid problems and hearing or vision loss.

For many young people simply picking up where they left off before their diagnosis just isn’t possible. That is why when treatment ends, the Trust’s work begins.

Through the Trust’s sailing and outdoor adventures, young people laugh, gain a new sense of purpose and self-worth, rediscover independence, and feel optimism for the future. They realise what they are capable of and stop feeling like ‘the only one’. They start to re-establish their purpose and place in the world and believe in a brighter future.

The Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust is there for anyone looking for support, no matter how long off treatment they are. Visit ellenmacarthurcancertrust.org or follow @emctrust on social media.