Every year, throughout the month of October, we honor Max and his legacy by partnering with our network of cancer organizations to carry out the Maximize Life Global Cancer Awareness Campaign. It is a month of service that aims at decreasing stigma and increasing hope for people living with cancer around the world.
Nothing is more powerful than storytelling, especially when it’s told from a person’s first-hand experience.
In the Asia Pacific region, we are often known as “shy” community. We do not often share our stories publicly, especially a story about cancer diagnosis. We often have no one to turn to because we do not want our parents to worry; we do not want our children to feel the burden; we do not want to tell our neighbors who might be starting to avoid us because we are diagnosed with cancer.
This year, like past years, 16 patient support groups in Africa and Middle East have joined the Maximize Life Campaign with enthusiasm and excitement. All the groups in Africa welcome back our friends from Sierra Leone who inspired us all with their resilience in the face of the Ebola epidemic that touched their country.
October is my favorite month of the year. It marks a changing of the seasons in both the southern and northern hemispheres that brings a sense of reflection and excitement. As such, there could not be a more appropriate month to celebrate theMaximize Life Global Cancer Awareness Campaign, an initiative that encourages people impacted by cancer to reflect on their experiences, celebrate their resiliency, and share their stories with the world.
This summer, India Country Head Viji Venkatesh is crisscrossing the USA to host Chai for Cancer addas and share The Max Foundation vision. Started in India, Chai for Cancer is our global initiative to invite our community to partner with us. There have already been a number of events in Houston, Charlotte, and New Jersey with more to come!
Our Guest Bloggers collaborating on this summit overview are members of The Max Foundation team based in India who led and participated in the Friends of Max 2015 Leadership Summit. They include Shilpi Sirohi Singh, Ashika Naik, Ameya Surve, and Priyanka Kandalgaokar.
In India, the word “Mela” means ‘gathering’ or ‘to meet’ or a ‘fair’. India is a land of fairs and festivals – every month there are festivals held throughout the different regions of India.
At The Max Foundation, increasing global access to treatment for people around the world living with cancer is a core element of our mission. But access to treatment is only one piece in helping all people facing cancer live with dignity and hope. Fostering care and support for patients processing the hardships of cancer is essential.
The Max Foundation (Max) and Friends of Max (FOM) proudly announce the formalization of their long standing collaboration supporting people living with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) and gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST) in India. The two organizations signed a landmark Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) at the recent Friends of Max 2015 Leadership Summit attended by Max CEO, Pat Garcia-Gonzalez in Hyderabad on April 19th.
On October 23rd we visited the out-patient department of the Philippine General Hospital to distribute a recent shipment of hats that we had received from With Love in Every Stitch. It was amazingly beautiful to see the faces of small children queuing up to choose the hats they liked. The children were fascinated with the colors and designs of the hats. They gladly tried them on and proudly showed them to their parents and the other children.
As a new team member of The Max Foundation, I feel honored to work with an organization that advocates for patients dealing with blood cancer. This global health organization has helped thousands of patients get access to treatment, provide education and awareness, and bring a community together throughout the world.
In Guatemala, there are 14,200 new cases of cancer a year and from this amount 9,100 people die of cancer or 64.7%. Most of these diagnoses could have been prevented or better treated if diagnosed early. In Guatemala only the persons who have access to the national social security plan have free services and treatment, but poor quality and lack of medications or in most occasions. People who do not have social security have to pay for health services and for medications. As per statistics taken from Globocan 2008, the most common cancers in Guatemala are prostate, cervix, stomach, breast and lung cancers.
On a dry sunny Saturday in Addis Ababa, more than 100 people sat in an auditorium at the Black Lion Hospital, intently listening to a panel of experts. Representatives from the Federal Ministry of Health, doctors, local and international NGOs, and concerned citizens, gathered together for the first time, to discuss the challenges of treating cancer in the country. People in the audience were not ordinary people; they were people who were affected by the dreaded C word, cancer. Most of them, parents whose children were undergoing treatment, some of them cancer survivors themselves.
