Seltz. In remission from cancer, she created an association to help patients.

Behind her big smile lies a painful story. A story that Maheritiana Schehr now hopes to draw on to carry out her fight, even "on a small scale": raising funds for people with cancer.

Because this terrible disease made her lose almost everything. First, her father in 2001, who contracted lung cancer, and her mother in 2012, who contracted ovarian cancer. But also her older sister in 2015 and her husband in 2020, who also contracted lung cancer . This disease could have also taken her life in 2020 and 2022. But Maheritiana Schehr knocked her down, twice. "I fight for my children, they are small and they are my strength," she says.

Today, the forty-year-old is still in remission after a recurrence of breast cancer, detected two years ago. But the Malagasy woman now wants to support her native island, which she left in 2012 to settle in Seltz with her husband, who died five years earlier. "It was very difficult for me because four months after losing him, I was diagnosed with breast cancer for the first time," says Maheritiana Schehr. Removal of her left breast, radiotherapy, chemotherapy... After several months of treatment, and while continuing to care for her two children, aged two and nine at the time, Maheritiana managed to beat the disease for the first time.

"I was very alone at that time because my whole family lives in Madagascar ," she recalls. "I had to manage the illness and take care of my children at the same time, the eldest of whom has autism."

A few months later, when she thought she was "finally out of the woods," the doctors told her "that I had relapsed." She was back for treatment and another operation. Despite this new ordeal, it was also the moment "when the idea of ​​creating this association came to me."

After a second breast surgery , she decided to create the association: Canceretoile Madagascar. "There (in Madagascar), when people are diagnosed with cancer, they cannot get treatment because they cannot afford it," says Maheritiana Schehr. "Some have no choice but to sell their homes to access treatment." Touched by this situation, which her family members have experienced, Maheritiana Schehr hopes "that as many people as possible will come on Sunday, September 7," for the first event organized by the association, at the multi-purpose hall in Neewiller-près-Lauterbourg from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.

"It's a flea market and a clothing exchange," explains the association's president. "For now, six exhibitors are participating, but we hope to have many more."

For this launch event, as for all the others that will follow, all the funds raised by the young association will be donated to the Madagascar-based NGO Sahi, which works in the health sector. "We have other projects," explains Maheritiana Schehr. "For example, we're going to have a stand at the Seltz Christmas market, and a gospel group based in Strasbourg is expected to organize a concert, the funds from which should come back to us."

Clothing exchanges and flea markets: Sunday, September 7, 2025, from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., at the multi-purpose hall in Neewiller-près-Lauterbourg. Snacks available on site. Registration is still open Friday, September 5, 2025. To participate, contact the Canceretoile Madagascar association by phone at 07 60 57 91 28 or by email at [email protected]