Bosnians weave wigs for kids with cancer

AJLA Nizic did not know what cancer was when she was diagnosed with it at age 4. “But I knew that I lost my hair,” said the Bosnian leukaemia survivor who is now 19 years old.

Now a medical student, Nizic is leading a campaign to give other sick children a luxury her parents could not afford: wigs. Bosnia, one of Europe’s poorest countries, has no domestic wigmaking industry.

The nearest available source has been neighboring Croatia, where wigs cost up to US$2,300, more than four times the average monthly salary in Bosnia.

Nizic’s campaign “My Hair, Your Hair” is encouraging Bosnians to donate their locks to a new wigmaking workshop that opened in Sarajevo last October. There, volunteers are weaving wigs specifically for children who are undergoing chemotherapy or have lost their hair because of other health complications.

Hundreds of people — mainly women, as the hair must be at least 30 centimeters long — have flocked to hair-cutting events held at schools and shopping malls around the country. Others have cut their own hair and mailed it to the campaign.

On a recent afternoon at an elementary school in Sarajevo, several young pupils sat calmly as their hair was combed into sections and then snipped off. “I don’t want to be the only one smiling,” said 13-year-old Suana Sehic, now sporting a bouncy bob. “I would like a smile to return to the face of all children.”

Solidarity often saves lives in Bosnia, where many families struggle to cover the costs of basic medical care, let alone “secondary” therapies like wigs. The Sarajevo workshop uses donated real hair to avoid the expense of the materials needed to make synthetic wigs. It takes at least two weeks and the hair of six people to weave one wig, and a dozen volunteers have woven around 20 wigs since last October, according to Nermina Cuzovic, 39, who set up the project with funding from the Swiss government.

The wig project is part of a wider effort by a Bosnian association called “A Heart for Children with Cancer” which helps young patients and their families.

In 2016, the group opened Bosnia’s first “Parents’ House” — a small apartment complex near Sarajevo’s paediatric hospital where families who live far from the capital can stay while their children are being treated. Edin Dzeko, a Bosnian footballer who plays for Serie A Club Roma, recently signed up to fund one of the apartments for three years. “I want to show these children and their parents that they are not alone,” said Dzeko.