INTERVIEW / Patsy Allen: Dragonboat races for cancer awareness
[Update 7 September: link to list of teams added]
The event: 30+ teams of 12 paddlers, one drummer and one steersperson each, mostly unskilled amateurs, racing 250-300 metres in colourful Chinese dragonboats. Many other activities, including a mini-regatta for children, facepainting, and food stalls to help families make a day of it. The tourism office has several great ideas to add to your outing. The event leads up to activities for breast cancer awareness month in October.
When and where: Lac de Joux (map) in the Jura, Sunday 9 September, all day
Who's doing it: The English Speaking Cancer Association of Geneva with volunteer racing teams from local schools, companies and organizations. The crowd: 1,500 are expected from around the Lake Geneva region
Why: To raise awareness about breast cancer in particular, cancer in general (and to raise money)
How does it work: The Paddle for cancer web site for the races has details about the sport, the day and more
The weather: forecast is for undiluted sunshine and 25 degrees, perfect for paddlers!
Photos of the lake, Vallée de Joux Tourisme, 2007
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The combination at first surprises and puzzles: breast cancer, Chinese dragonboats, a Swiss lake in the Jura and a crowd of hundreds, mostly speaking English, to cheer on the boat paddlers. Patsy Allen, president of the English Speaking Cancer Association (ESCA) in Geneva, promptly sets the record straight. "There is a huge link between dragonboat racing and breast cancer."
Allen smiles at the women whose heads poke through the door every few minutes at ESCA's small, busy volunteer office in the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva, which is home to the World Council of Churches and dozens of small non-profit organizations. She explains that 10 years ago (continued . . .)
a sports medicine doctor in Vancouver, Canada decided to disprove thinking which was then current, that women with breast cancer should not exercise too much. "He said, 'I'm taking breast cancer survivors and showing they can do it.'" His efforts resulted in a good performance at the race and a change in treatment, with more emphasis now put on women exercising as part of their programme for returning to good health.
The incidence of breast cancer is growing in the Lake Geneva region, Allen points out, and greater awareness will help women seek treatment earlier and thus improve their chances of beating the cancer. The screening programme in Geneva, which currently covers the cost for all women, is threatened financially and the group would like to remind people how important screening can be. Geneva has one of the highest incidences of breast cancer in the world. A recent dramatic change has health officials worried: far more women are being diagnosed at younger ages, with a 46.7% increase per year in the 25 to 39-year-old age group.
"We want to show everyone that people with cancer can lead full,
active, sporty lives." Allen herself turned to ESCA when she was
diagnosed with breast cancer in 2002. "I'd been here eight years, my
French was okay, but it's not the same when you have something like
this happen to you. I was an emergency room nurse but even so, when I
saw the anesthesiologist and he started using all these words I had to
say slow down! Talk at my level."
A similar need drove the founder of ESCA, William Faulkner, to create the group in 2000. He was diagnosed with cancer, felt his French was not strong and that he needed a support group where he could speak in English. He worked with counselors from Webster University to set up ESCA. Today 40% of ESCA's members are breast cancer patients and survivors. A support group called Bosom Pals was recently set up.
Dragonboat racing has since become a popular way to raise awareness about breast cancer, particularly in the US and Canada, and about cancer in general. The idea to do it in Geneva was sparked when Allen heard about it during a Reach to Recovery conference in Athens, Greece. 'I came back home and thought it could be fun to do this on Lake Geneva." Europe's largest lake turned out to be too complicated, in terms of lake safety for inexperienced paddlers and organizing the event.
"Rob
Ireland is a big rower and he offered to help us. Rob looked at several
sites and said we should do it at Lac de Joux. With a lot of people
who've never been in a dragonboat," she smiles, "you have to think
about safety. And the tourism office director there, Thomas Wasser, has
been very enthusiastic and helpful."
The event is firstly an awareness campaign and secondly a fundraiser, but the group decided that with such a major new event it needed help. It took its inspiration from St Catherine's Hospice in Britain. Some of the money raised will go to cover the cost of calling in Dragon Boat Events, a British company that works with charities to organize these races. The boats are coming from Zurich. "We hired the UK team to come so that it would be safe and really professionally done. You have to think about getting all these boats here, make sure you have extra toilets ready for a crowd this size. We really want to get it right and then we can start thinking about doing it to raise more money, when people know what it is."
The community response, says Allen has been "phenomenal. We had been told that team building is not big in Swiss businesses, but we haven't found that." Allen says they hoped for 10 teams and 32 have signed up. There will be teams from the different campuses of the International School of Geneva and from Webster University. WHO and several companies will have paddlers. In the end ESCA had to turn down teams. Each team pays a registration fee and it must raise the money, but teams are encouraged to go beyond this amount. "This year we didn't have enough advance planning time, we realize now, so in some cases the team building didn't really happen. And it's hard for schools to organize this during the summer vacation."
ESCA at any given time provides support and assistance to 30 people in the Lake Geneva region with cancer. Some of the proceeds will go to support the Swiss breast cancer network.
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