Redkite National Director awarded Order of Australia

Helen Sewell, a National Director of Redkite, was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia on Monday. Her award was given in recognition of her contributions to organisations such as Redkite that assist young people with cancer and to medical research groups.

Helen is a member of Redkite’s professional and committed Board of Directors. Her vital work with Redkite was inspired by the diagnosis, treatment and, tragically, loss of her teenaged daughter Johanna. Johanna died in 1989 after a two year battle with cancer.

“My association with Redkite is inspired by personal experience of losing my beautiful eldest daughter to cancer. Johanna was just 17 when she was diagnosed, and while we were going through all the traumas associated with diagnosis, treatment and finally the loss of our darling daughter, I was determined that if I was ever in a position to do so, I would help other families to get through the ordeal.”

When Helen’s daughter was fighting her battle with cancer, there was no Redkite to turn to for help. As a single parent trying to provide for three children and keep a new business going, she experienced first-hand the struggle faced by families when their child has cancer.

Today, Redkite is there for children, young people and their families from the moment of diagnosis and remains with them through their cancer journey. Redkite provides hospital and community based support to families that includes counselling, financial assistance and education assistance.

Helen has played a key role in Redkite’s growth and development. She shared the vision of taking the organisation from a small state based group, then the Malcolm Sargent Cancer Fund for Children, to a leading national childhood cancer charity.

She has also played an important role in the development of community-based services for families. These include telephone, email and telegroup counselling services available to families no matter where they are based. Helen’s rural background gave Redkite an insight into the real needs faced by families in remote communities and the social isolation that comes with having a child diagnosed with cancer.

Helen is committed to helping Australian families that are in the situation she found herself in. She now speaks at functions and conferences to create a greater understanding of the needs of families who have a child with cancer.

Her particular interest in the development, support, and improved care of adolescents and young adults in the community with cancer, has included funding direct services for Redkite initiatives and the funding of the Johanna Sewell wing at the Princess Margaret Hospital in Perth. This was the first specialised adolescent cancer ward in Australia.


For further information please contact:
Susie Cameron, Communications and PR Manager, Redkite
T 02 9219 4018 E scameron@redkite.org.au