Elephants and Tea - One Herd - 1

Our Voices
Far Too Often
F
or those that work in the adolescent and
young adult (AYA) cancer advocacy space
as we do, it is no secret that there are far
too many racial, ethnic, age, and gender
NICK GIALLOURAKIS, EXECUTIVE
DIRECTOR AND CO-FOUNDER,
ELEPHANTS AND TEA & STEVEN G.
CANCER FOUNDATION
biases. Far too often, we hear that an individual has had
an experience that makes you shake your head or want to
jump up and scream as loud as possible.
And far too often, the complaints or hand
raising goes unnoticed or is ignored.
It also happens that far too often, we
do not actually read a story about those
experiences because of how vulnerable
and isolating they can feel. Or survivors
have voiced their concerns, but they fall
on deaf ears-no one actually helps them
with what's happening.
Thus, we decided to launch this twoyear
initiative called One Herd.
One Herd is an innovative and integrative
way of using content, stories, and
community to better understand and effectively
address health disparities in access
to care for the medically underserved.
Our goal when launching this program
was to further understand the needs of the
underserved communities and amplify
those stories by educating the professionals
that serve the AYA cancer community.
We partnered with our dear friend
Yolanda Murphy and her TEJ Media
brand to bring together content and
stories that effectively address health
disparities in access to care for the medically
underserved in an innovative and
integrative way.
Within this Elephants and Tea issue,
you will read stories from individuals
have experienced all the biases mentioned
above, as well as other disparities
that we transparently didn't even think
about, such as being overweight or having
autism.
You will also find information from
our community on page 6 from an online
survey we conducted to help lay the
foundation of this program.
Ultimately, we all need to remember
that we are One Herd. We need to help
each other-our fellow humans-and
continue to educate the people taking
care of those impacted by cancer.
While our stories may be different, we
are all humans and need to be treated
the same.
A huge thank you to all the authors
willing to be vulnerable and share their
stories and experiences. Another huge
thank you to our advisory team for
helping us shape the online survey and
reviewing these results.
Never be afraid of using your voice.
Never.
We are One Herd. l
ELEPHANTSANDTEA.ORG
ONE HERD ISSUE 2025
1
http://www.ELEPHANTSANDTEA.ORG
Elephants and Tea - One Herd

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Elephants and Tea - One Herd
