Teachers' guide

Introducing Captain Chemo

Captain Chemo was created by Benjamin de Garis, a patient at The Royal Marsden.

When Ben first began his treatment at the age of 13, he decided to design a character to help himself and other children make sense of their diagnosis and treatment. Sadly Ben died aged 18, but his work and characters live on.

Information and games

Captain Chemo is today used by The Royal Marsden Cancer Campaign as the face of fundraising for younger people.

With his own dedicated website, Captain Chemo uses colorful information and interactive games to teach children all over the world about cancer, its treatment and what to expect if they or someone they know is diagnosed with cancer.

How we can help you

Your school can help support The Royal Marsden Cancer Campaign by becoming one of our Chemo Cadets. We want to make supporting us as easy as possible for you.

Fundraising ideas
We have designed an inspirational and exciting A–Z of school fundraising ideas. Whether you want to hold a charity day or make us your Charity of the Year we have ideas for you.

Materials for events
We can provide you with Captain Chemo t-shirts, balloons, posters and newsletters to help promote your school event. If you are holding an outdoor event, we can lend you one of our large Royal Marsden Cancer Campaign banners.

Presentation at your school
If your school is local to our London or Sutton office our Schools Liaison Officer, Janet Tobin, is happy to come along and give a presentation. We have three special presentations for 4- to 8-year-olds, 9- to 13-year-olds and 14- to 17-year-olds, which are ideal to present to your class or assembly.

Captain Chemo goodies
We have exclusive Captain Chemo bookmarks, stickers and certificates to reward hardworking Cadets. We also have a special Captain Chemo plaque to award to our top fundraising schools.

Contact us

And don’t forget to send us photos of your fundraising events. We love to display them on our website, Facebook, etc.

If you have any questions or would like to organise a Captain Chemo event, please email us at captain.chemo@rmh.nhs.uk.