Anwar El-Kamony

A strong will, a challenge, and a decision to conquer the impossible. This is Anwar El-Kamony, the world-ranked Egyptian tennis player who has become a hero to humanity and an inspiration to millions.

I met him in Cannes in France, and I had watched a film on the sidelines of the festival about the story of the challenge he went through, which dazzled the whole world. If I had watched it in a movie, I would have imagined that it was a figment of the author’s imagination, but it is a reality that moves around us and among us and we see it. He was a world-ranked champion athlete in tennis, and suddenly he fell in the court...  to discover that he had bone marrow cancer. He did not give up... he underwent chemotherapy, his features changed, his hair fell out, his weight increased to 140 kilograms, and he developed “gangrene” in his fingers. The doctors decided to amputate them, but he completely refused. He has hope that he will be the only player who returns to playing after recovering from this disease.

After 7 years, he returned back, almost miraculously, to the international classification again. He passed through death, so life became a mere gift for him. He became a founding member of the Better World Foundation, which is one of the largest humanitarian institutions in the world.

He is now in Egypt organizing the official opening ceremony of the “Givers of Hope” campaign on Monday, the global campaign launched by “El-Kamony” to spread hope, support and inspiration to fighters of serious diseases, people with special needs and orphans. The ceremony will be attended by figures from the United Nations and UNESCO.

MP Mohamed Abou El-Enein, Parliament deputy speaker, who was honored on the sidelines of the Cannes Festival for his humanitarian giving and his charity foundation, which plays a prominent role in Egypt and the Middle East region, will attend the ceremony. Abou El-Enein also had been honored before in Rome for this same social and humanitarian activity.

El-Kamony said to me: "The idea of “Givers of Hope” came to instill a spirit of hope and determination in every person to return to life after going through crises, whether psychological or physical.

 Anwar El-Kamony won championships in tennis and now he wins championships in humanity.

I hope that his life story will be turned into a drama series or will be honored in a way befitting this story, full of challenge, victory, and giving.