Have you visited the 2015 Maximize Life Essay Contest webpage recently? The Max Foundation is honored to share that the 2015 Maximize Life Essay Contest winners are officially released! Three winners in total, one for each of the French, English and Spanish categories, were selected by a panel of highly esteemed judges within the global health community. You may view the complete panel of judges here. We are exceedingly grateful for the valuable time and input provided by each of the judges. With 71 meaningful and authentic personal stories submitted, it was no small task to select only one winner for each language category!

We are also overwhelmingly grateful and proud of the 71 brave individuals who came forward to share about their personal journey with cancer. While we may feel from time to time as though we don’t have enough power to affect change as broadly as we might like, we all come armed with our story, and when it comes to inspiring others with hope, understanding and compassion our stories are powerful tools indeed.

So, without further ado, the 2015 Maximize Life Essay Contest winners are:

• French-Language Winner: Saliou Diop, Survivor, Senegal
• English-Language Winner: P. Sangeetha, Caregiver, India
• Spanish-Language Winner: Jozina Pacheco Gómez, Survivor, Peru

In addition to each winner receiving a US$300 grant, The Max Foundation is also providing a US$500 grant to the Max Global Network partner organization of each winner’s choice in an effort to strengthen the work that they are doing within their communities to better support people living with cancer. The following partners were selected by the three winners to receive the grant:

• A.G.I.L du Sénégal, Senegal (French-Language Winner)
• Friends of Max, India (English-Language Winner)
• Esperantra, Peru (Spanish-Language Winner)
• Congratulations to the winners and partner group awardees! And congratulations to all of the storytellers shared their personal journey. Your words will continue to inspire and bring hope to all who read them.

Browse essays from this year’s essay collection.