INTERNATIONAL ORGAN DONATION AWARENESS-SWITZERLAND-UNIQUE CAMP ENCOURAGES KIDS - AND ORGAN DONORS

Source: WRS World Radio Switzerland

Unique camp encourages kids—and organ donors

Fifty children from many different countries gathered last week in the ski resort of Anzère for an adventure camp. What makes them so special? None would be alive today if it weren’t for organ transplants. For Tackers, the organization putting on the event, this is the best way to thank donors, while at the same time giving transplant kids a chance to have fun and get fit. Reporter Lucas Chambers went up to meet them:

Beaven Schütke is a chipper, outspoken young girl who was barely born when she got her transplant operation.

BEAVEN SCHUTKE: “I had neonatal hemochromatosis when I was born, and my liver wasn’t working, so I flew over to London, to King’s College and I had my transplant at five days old.”

She now lives in Ireland, but has been coming to Anzère for the last five years not to miss out on a Tackers adventure camp.

SCHUTKE: “We do skiing and we do loads of activities such as arts and craft, and paragliding and there’s dog sledging. We all have something in common, and we all make loads of friends here so it’s great.”

Also a transplantee, Liz Shick founded Tackers nine years ago. She explains the camp is about helping transplanted kids become self-confident and self-sufficient vis a vis their condition. Many are teased in school and most have to take medicine their whole lives to prevent the body’s immune system from rejecting donated organs.

Shick says it’s also a way to thank donors by celebrating the lives they’re saved, as well as a way to encourage more people to become donors.

LIZ SHUCK: “This is a message to donor families to say thank you. This place where we’re standing here, full of people, full of life, would be empty if there were no organ donors. One person can save several people.”

In the last two years, the number of donors in Switzerland has gone up 30 percent. But we are still shy of the needed 20 donors per million inhabitants, says Shick. Indeed last year, 67 people died waiting for organs that never came.

SHUCK: “There’s definitely room for improvement. And I hate to say that because it sounds like I’m criticizing someone, and I’m not, but we all know there is room for improvement.”

Carrying a donor card in your wallet is a good start says Shick, but better still is to inform your family members you wish to donate. If something happens to you, they are the ones who must ultimately give the doctor permission to pass your organs onto someone else, someone like Beaven Schütke for example, who is now sure grateful for the fun-filled days to come.

SCHUTKE: “Well, there’s dress up disco on Thursday, which I can’t wait for. And Friday there’s a big race and a barbecue. Then Saturday we’re heading back home.”

—Lucas Chambers, for World Radio Switzerland, in Anzère

In 2012, Anzère will host the Winter World Transplant Games. If you wish to know more, you can contactwww.swisstransplant.org