Guadalajara, Mexico - Cancer is a leading killer of children in Mexico. While the mortality rates are improving among American children, the death rate for cancer kids in Mexico is actually going up. Now some folks in Austin and across Texas are trying to do something about it. Private donors, businessmen and philanthropists are raising $60-million towards a new children's oncology hospital being built right now in Guadalajara, Jalisco.

When completed in a year and a half, Texas doctors and surgeons will join the staff there at the new Hospital Mi Esperanza. Organizing the doctors here is Dr. Stephen Prescott, who says, "The worst message you can get is your child has leukemia. You interpret, 'oh they are going to die from this soon.' Today in the United States that's usually not the case. In Mexico it still often is. The majority of children are going to die from that. The real impact is those lives will be saved."

The mortality rate the past few decades from cancer among all Mexicans has nearly doubled. Among children under the age of fifteen it is up 20%. Because of changes in Mexican society, experts believe more people face higher exposure to risk factors and overall cases are expected to double by 2030, overwhelming the public health sector's ability to cope.

Now children in Guadalajara will have new hope. Alejandro Montano is coordinating efforts between Mexicans and Americans on the project. "Everything makes sense when you see the faces of these little children when they get cured or undergo treatment. They tell you I want to be a pilot, or a chef or I want to be a doctor. It's very warming, very moving."

The campaign to raise the money and organize doctors is being led by the Ben Barnes Group, and the former Lieutenant Governor says it is a labor of love, "Now there is a physical facility where they can practice their medicine and they can save those lives. So it's a heart warming story that a group of local business leaders and philanthropists got together to build this field of dreams, this wonderful hospital in Guadalajara to save these young lives."

Taking a closer look at this cancer problem and the disparity across the border, back in 1975 Americans under the age of twenty had a 50% chance of surviving five years. Now the rate is over 80%. But in Mexico the overall cancer mortality rate in the past half century has gone from 28 people out of 100,000 to 52, nearly doubled. The death rate among Mexican children has risen the past few decades by 20.3%.