AN­GE­LO JE­DIDI­AH

Re­porter

an­ge­lo.je­didi­ah@guardian.co.tt

Dur­ing dif­fi­cult times, we of­ten cling to hope and search for an­chors who re­mind us that bet­ter days are ahead. As this year’s Glob­al Hero of Hope, Mar­sha Daniel Joseph is do­ing ex­act­ly that, one in­spir­ing step at a time.

The 52-year-old Tacarigua Pres­by­ter­ian Pri­ma­ry School teacher was named the 2026 ti­tle­hold­er by the Amer­i­can Can­cer So­ci­ety.

Nom­i­nat­ed by the T&T Can­cer So­ci­ety (TTCS), the ed­u­ca­tor was cho­sen for be­ing a bea­con of light to many, hav­ing fought, over­come and in­spired bright­ly as a can­cer sur­vivor.

Long be­fore her di­ag­no­sis, Mar­sha was a de­vot­ed sup­port­er of the can­cer aware­ness move­ment. For years, she vol­un­teered at events and par­tic­i­pat­ed in aware­ness runs, of­ten ral­ly­ing those around her to join in. Lit­tle did she know that those years of cham­pi­oning and sup­port­ing the cause would ul­ti­mate­ly save her own life.

The year 2024 was meant to be one of glo­ri­ous mile­stones. Mar­sha was about to turn 50 and cel­e­brate her 25th wed­ding an­niver­sary with her hus­band, Ed­ward. Along with their son and daugh­ter (Shay and Cyan) suc­cess­ful­ly carv­ing out their own paths as young adults, it was poised to be a year for the books—but in an un­ex­pect­ed way.

“I was di­ag­nosed with breast can­cer. I was not the can­di­date who pre­sent­ed pain, tired­ness, not feel­ing well, any of the symp­toms that you, as a woman, you would ob­serve or no­tice with your body, noth­ing like that. I just sim­ply ‘felt some­thing’,” Mar­sha told Guardian Me­dia.

Thanks to years of ed­u­ca­tion by the TTCS, Mar­sha had spent years du­ti­ful­ly con­duct­ing rou­tine checks. Up­on feel­ing a small lump, she did not de­lay, im­me­di­ate­ly book­ing a mam­mo­gram and an ul­tra­sound. She re­fused to sit in fear and re­mained con­vinced it was just an­oth­er stan­dard, or­di­nary check. Yet, even for some­one so proac­tive, Mar­sha ad­mits the di­ag­no­sis she re­ceived was a heart­break­ing blow.

Still, she was de­ter­mined that this would not be a sea­son of ad­ver­si­ty, but mere­ly a brief chal­lenge to over­come.

“It wasn’t a sit­u­a­tion of doom and gloom. It was a sit­u­a­tion where, okay, these are the facts. This is what we’re deal­ing with. This is the stage we are at, and this is the pro­to­col we’re go­ing to fol­low.”

Af­ter dis­cus­sions with her fam­i­ly, doc­tors and the TTCS, Mar­sha opt­ed for a dou­ble mas­tec­to­my, a de­ci­sive step she took with com­plete con­vic­tion. In brief mo­ments of un­cer­tain­ty, how­ev­er, she re­fused to sur­ren­der to hope­less­ness, made eas­i­er by the un­wa­ver­ing pres­ence of her friends, fam­i­ly and col­leagues.

Fol­low­ing her surgery, Mar­sha achieved no ev­i­dence of dis­ease (NED) sta­tus. Through­out her road to re­cov­ery, she found that the re­la­tion­ships she forged through the Can­cer So­ci­ety and the Sur­vivors Net­work made all the dif­fer­ence.

“You have these won­der­ful peo­ple that sup­port you as well, and there are things that I may be able to, you know, speak to a sur­vivor who would un­der­stand this as­pect of my jour­ney. While you have the sup­port and of all your loved ones, there are cer­tain things that speak­ing with an­oth­er sur­vivor can put some per­spec­tive,” she said.

But Mar­sha’s strength shone bright­est when times were tough­est. While en­dur­ing the heavy emo­tions and men­tal toll of fight­ing for sur­vival, she chose to use her ex­pe­ri­ence to serve oth­ers, both those bat­tling can­cer and those who are not.

“It doesn’t end when you end chemo, or you end your ra­di­a­tion, or you end with your surgery, it doesn’t end there. And there is a term that is used out there, which is called scans anx­i­ety, which is when you get anx­i­ety every time you have to do a scan or you have to do a test, and it’s re­al,” she said.

“This goes for per­sons who are not di­ag­nosed as well, be­cause a lot of times we know what we need to do.”

Re­turn­ing to the reg­u­lar as­pects of her life some­times seemed hard­er for the peo­ple around her than it was for Mar­sha her­self.

“I went out to work some­times, and it’s some­thing sur­vivor would go through, where some­times peo­ple are very guard­ed to start a con­ver­sa­tion about it. And I have been very open about my sto­ry, and, like I said, be­ing open about it, I’ve had peo­ple come up to me and say, “Well, Mrs Joseph, I saw your sto­ry, thank you for shar­ing.’ And then some­times they would share that a friend or rel­a­tive that’s go­ing through the same thing, or maybe they even have a ques­tion.”

Through­out her jour­ney, Mar­sha’s ded­i­ca­tion to turn­ing pain in­to pur­pose quick­ly caught the at­ten­tion of the TTCS. Dur­ing her re­cov­ery, she ded­i­cat­ed her time to cre­at­ing on­line safe spaces for fel­low can­cer war­riors.

This made Mar­sha the TTCS’s ide­al can­di­date for the Glob­al Hero of Hope ti­tle. Far more than a cer­e­mo­ni­al award, it is in­ter­na­tion­al recog­ni­tion of ad­vo­ca­cy and ser­vice be­stowed up­on can­cer sur­vivors and care­givers whose sto­ries and lives in­spire oth­ers.

“Mar­sha her­self is a can­cer sur­vivor and we look at our can­cer sur­vivors as true he­roes. She’s liv­ing proof that there is life with can­cer and af­ter can­cer,” TTCS spokesper­son Sher­ine Mun­gal told Guardian Me­dia.

Mar­sha, who deeply cred­its the Can­cer So­ci­ety for the most trans­for­ma­tive parts of her jour­ney, said she was in­cred­i­bly hum­bled by the ho­n­our, which she learned about at the end of 2025. She grace­ful­ly ad­mits that this mile­stone is on­ly pos­si­ble be­cause she stands on the shoul­ders of gi­ants—the sur­vivors who em­pow­ered her long be­fore she ever re­ceived a di­ag­no­sis.

“I know one of the things that I def­i­nite­ly want­ed to do was not sit in a di­ag­no­sis and not help some­one. If I can come out of this em­pow­ered and em­pow­er some­body else, even if it’s one per­son, I know I would have done what I set out to do, and that’s where it start­ed.”

Tied to the Glob­al Hero of Hope award is the an­nu­al Re­lay For Life event. This year, the ini­tia­tive takes the form of To­ba­go Moves, fea­tur­ing a 5K walk around To­ba­go on Sat­ur­day, Ju­ly 11.

Mar­sha is im­plor­ing the pub­lic to come out, em­pha­sis­ing just how emo­tion­al­ly up­lift­ing these walks can be.

“When you walk, this is not a stranger. We’re no longer strangers in that mo­ment. We’re one big beau­ti­ful fam­i­ly. We’re a fam­i­ly fight­ing to­geth­er, liv­ing to­geth­er, laugh­ing to­geth­er, cry­ing to­geth­er. But we’re one big beau­ti­ful fam­i­ly in all of this,” Mar­sha added.

As she con­tin­ues liv­ing a life filled with joy and grat­i­tude, Mar­sha re­mains deeply com­mit­ted to not just telling her sto­ry, but us­ing it to ed­u­cate and light the way for oth­ers. And while the path can of­ten seem dark, Mar­sha is liv­ing proof that no one has to walk it alone.

Her fi­nal re­minder to any­one fac­ing a sim­i­lar bat­tle? “Do not live in fear.”