Tym odvahy is a team of runners that raise funding to help to send seriously ill children from the Czech Republic to a series of summer camps in Hungary.
If you like to run and are thinking to take part in one of the many long-distance running events that take place in Prague on a regular basis, then why not consider joining the Tym Odvahy and getting your friends and/or colleagues to sponsor your participation in the run so that your achievement can raise funds for a really worthwhile cause?
The Foundation Bátor Tabor Czech Republic was founded in 2009 with the prime aim of raising financing in order to ensure the participation of Czech children in the Bátor Tabor camp. The Foundation has been supported by a number of companies since its incorporation, including Eurovia, Adastra, Skoda Holding, Colliers International, Kempinski Hotel Hybernska, ČEZ and the Sokolovská coal company, with several of these raising finances through runners taking part in the Tym Odvahy.
The Bátor Tabor camp is a unique recreational and therapeutic program for seriously ill children which takes place in Hungary, 60 km from Budapest. The camp has been offering a comprehensive therapeutic and recreational programme for children with cancer, diabetes, chronic arthritis or haemophilia since 2001. In just the last five years, hundreds of Czech, Slovak and Polish children have visited this international camp to enjoy eight days full of laughter.
How do children spend their time at the Bator Camp?
The camp involves all sorts of activities that the kids absolutely love. On the premises are a number of different sites, for example stables and a coral for horses, rowing on the lake with an island and a pier, a football field with artificial turf, an indoor sports hall, a forest trail, a music room and a small theatre.
Training volunteers and programme managers make every minute of the camp into a new adventure for the kids, by filling their days with lots of different activities. Rowing and fishing on the lake, archery, a blindfold test of courage on ropes and swings high above the ground, hypo-therapy with friendly horses, a photography course with professionals and professional equipment, handicrafts of all kinds with a variety of materials, and so on.
Member of the Serious Fun Children’s Network
In 2007, the Bator Tabor Camp became the only Central European member of the union of camps called Serious Fun Children’s Network, founded by the Oscar winning actor Paul Newman in 1988. This international organization only accepts as its’ members camps that help chronically ill children via methods of experiential therapy. Members of the association accept children from 32 countries worldwide that are afflicted by some of more than 40 different chronic illnesses or injuries (such as cancer, leukaemia, AIDS, heart disease, diabetes, asthma, burns). The organization, which brings together five camps in the U.S. and one camp in each of Ireland, England, France, Israel, Italy and Hungary, has welcomed over 135,000 seriously ill children over the years. Participation in each camp is free for both the children and their families.
„Case Study“
Patrik is a seven year old boy from eastern Slovakia. Even though he has dark hair, his skin is pale and his body is small and frail. His disease is shown in his eyes and the expression on his face. At a height of 12 meters on the funicular railway he changes to a different child – secured by two ropes he bravely balances between the obstacles. He is being guided by the volunteers at the Bator Tabor Camp and everyone under the ropes is cheering him enthusiastically. Patrik is smiling proudly. Patrik, though, deserves the applause for the whole of his last year as, even before he took part in the camp, he had achieved a lot. The complicated cableway kind of reminds everyone of the life of these children; they have to balance it, they keep falling down and then getting up.
Patrick’s main obstacle race is chemotherapy and periods of long hospital stays. He handles them all without complaining. He is so courageous that he is the perfect student for the Bator Tabor Camp. Even now, up there on the ropes, he is triumphant.
In the Bátor Camp, no-one talks about cancer. „No-one except the six-member medical camp team knows the exact diagnosis of any of the children. They just get instructions in advance about what needs to be paid attention to, but they don’t look at them through their case records. Children at the camp are just normal children; they come to have fun and there that is exactly what they get.
If you would like to support more children from the Czech Republic attending the Bator Tabor camp each year, get your running shoes out and sign up for the Tym Odvahy – you wont just do yourself a lot of good, but imagine the fun that you can bring to one of these kids!
Go to www.tymodvahy.cz for more information
