Car­ol Quash

Can­cer is no re­specter of per­sons, and for Chad Bachan, kind­ness should not be ei­ther.

For years, the 31-year-old has been do­nat­ing his hair to the T&T Can­cer So­ci­ety’s (TTCS) Show You Care, Do­nate Some Hair ini­tia­tive, giv­ing peo­ple he has nev­er met the op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­ceive a hu­man-hair wig.

The ini­tia­tive en­cour­ages in­di­vid­u­als to do­nate their hair to sup­port chil­dren and pa­tients ex­pe­ri­enc­ing hair loss due to can­cer treat­ment and oth­er med­ical con­di­tions. Its goal is to pro­vide high-qual­i­ty wigs that help re­store con­fi­dence, dig­ni­ty and self-es­teem dur­ing some of life’s most dif­fi­cult mo­ments.

To qual­i­fy for do­na­tion, hair must be at least 12 inch­es long, clean and com­plete­ly dry. It must not be chem­i­cal­ly treat­ed or coloured, and must be se­cured in a pony­tail or braid be­fore it is cut. Af­ter cut­ting, it must be placed in a zip-top bag, then in an en­ve­lope for sub­mis­sion.

Once re­ceived by the Can­cer So­ci­ety, the hair is care­ful­ly pack­aged and shipped to But­ter­flies By Blaq In­cor­po­rat­ed, a non-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tion based in New York, where it is trans­formed in­to wigs.

Donors con­tribute an ad­min­is­tra­tive fee of TT$100 to as­sist with ship­ping costs.

The Trin­i­ty Col­lege East alum­nus and math­e­mat­ics teacher said he first learned about the ini­tia­tive through his hair­dress­er. He saw it as an op­por­tu­ni­ty to make a mean­ing­ful con­tri­bu­tion to can­cer pa­tients and al­lowed her to cut his hair for do­na­tion.

Ear­li­er this month, how­ev­er, he ex­pe­ri­enced a spe­cial mo­ment when his moth­er had the ho­n­our of cut­ting his hair for the first time, be­fore he per­son­al­ly de­liv­ered the do­na­tion to the TTCS of­fice in Port-of-Spain.

“When we were in sec­ondary school, my broth­er and I al­ways had long hair. My mom nev­er want­ed us to cut our hair. She al­ways used to tell us, ‘that’s your strength, like Samp­son in the Bible.’

“She didn’t want me to cut it at all. She cried, but she un­der­stands it’s for a good rea­son.”

Bachan said he was un­able to do­nate dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic but was look­ing for­ward to re­sum­ing the ini­tia­tive in 2022, the year he got mar­ried.

Un­for­tu­nate­ly, his hair had been cut in lay­ers, which meant it could not be do­nat­ed.

“I was re­al­ly dis­ap­point­ed. But now, four years lat­er, I grew it out and I do­nat­ed four sets of 20 inch­es,” he said, adding that it was the largest do­na­tion he had ever made.

Bachan ex­plained that his abil­i­ty to grow his hair quick­ly comes from years of main­tain­ing the same rou­tine.

“There is some­thing called hair mem­o­ry, just like mus­cle mem­o­ry. So be­cause I’m ac­cus­tomed to grow­ing my hair long for years, my hair nor­mal­ly grows to that length with­in two and a half years.

“And then I trim it and main­tain it to the length I de­sire for my­self.”

His com­mit­ment to can­cer aware­ness ex­tends be­yond hair do­na­tions.

In 2024, Bachan start­ed an ini­tia­tive with stu­dents at his school, en­cour­ag­ing the boys to cre­ate breast can­cer aware­ness by form­ing a hu­man pink rib­bon.

“You would al­ways see girls sup­port­ing it – dif­fer­ent so­ci­eties across the coun­try, the world sup­port­ing can­cer and show­ing their sup­port in their way.

“But I thought a pow­er­ful mes­sage would have come from an all-boys school do­ing it.”

He ex­plained that stu­dents stand on the marked-out rib­bon in the school’s quad­ran­gle, prefer­ably dressed in pink, while hold­ing pink rib­bons in the air. A drone then cap­tures aer­i­al footage of the hu­man rib­bon for­ma­tion.

“Our mot­to is Self­less­ly Serv­ing our Com­mu­ni­ty, and we be­lieve this sends a pow­er­ful mes­sage that our school sup­ports can­cer pa­tients.

“Since then, the girls (from Bish­ops East) have joined in, and it is now a cal­en­dar event.”

For Bachan, the ges­ture is about more than hair or a sin­gle day of aware­ness. It is about re­mind­ing peo­ple that com­pas­sion has no bound­aries - and that even some­thing as per­son­al as a hair­cut can be­come a source of hope for some­one else.