Hong Kong netball player Claudia Leung finds Movember solace after father’s cancer diagnosis – ‘I want him to see that it’s OK to speak about it’
- The 26-year-old outlines her staggering 360km charity row after a difficult year which saw her uncle take his own life
- ‘This isn’t just for my dad, but my brothers, uncles, friends – all for them,’ says Leung
Five years ago, Claudia Ling Leung’s father was diagnosed with late-stage prostate cancer. The news came as a devastating blow to the family and, naturally, certain topics became difficult to raise.
Leung, a Hong Kong Scottish Pipers netball player, trawled the web as a means to educate herself on the specific cancer, but also to find any way to alleviate the pent-up emotions and potentially help shine a light on the still-underexposed topic of men’s health.
Enter Movember, the foundation made famous by its annual moustache-growing charity event, but with a bigger call in “changing the face of men’s health”. Its focus on the likes of prostate cancer, testicular cancer and men’s suicide certainly touched a chord with Leung.
As Leung would tell you, Hong Kong loses 400 men to prostate cancer every year and is the fourth leading cause of male cancer deaths in the city. The Hong Kong Cancer Fund and partnering charities welcome all possible helping hands as research remains critical.
“I think Movember was kind of a way for me to talk about it,” said the 26-year-old Leung, who is team captain of Feather & Bone’s Movember campaign this year. “I didn’t really tell my family and friends so I guess I used it as a platform to announce and talk about [the news]. But also to help remind my friends’ families and dads to get checked – because it’s super important.