The tears mixed with the fine rain that fell in Saint Moritz. They were tears of joy, of overcoming, which turned into smiles at the cry of champions. And it is that the 28 boys and girls, and the 16 volunteers who accompanied them, members of Activez, achieved the challenge that began ten days ago in the French town of Chamonix, and which was none other than to travel 110 kilometers around Mont Blanc, in six stages on foot, passing through France, Italy and Switzerland. A challenge that ended this Friday, with a final stage, at the end of which the families of the adventurers were waiting for them to give them the welcome they deserved. A total of 28 young people with functional diversity such as Down syndrome, cerebral palsy or autism who have shown society, but above all to themselves, that they can achieve everything they set out to do.
It has taken two years for Activoz, an association focused on giving voice and support to people with functional diversity, to be able to meet this challenge. The pandemic, like everything, delayed it. Before they had climbed Mount Teide, and then they had walked the Camino de Santiago.
Almudena Díaz, president of Activoz, has attended DIARIO DE AVISOS since the penultimate stage of this challenge, which she assures has been “very hard” but also “very rewarding”. “We are 28 boys and girls from Activoz plus 16 volunteers to help us in the experience”. When she is asked how the adventurers are responding, the answer is clear, “spectacular”. “We have always had a support van. Two of the boys need a little more help, and have pulled the van more, but most have walked through all the stages.
He admits that they already think about the next challenge but also that it will be somewhat less demanding. “I am sure we will have a lot of adventure but it will be something that does not require so much effort, especially for the volunteers, we have been training since January on Mount Teide”, details Almudena.
And it is that precisely among the objectives of Activoz are those of promoting physical activity. “We have been posing challenges for several years. They play sports but we saw that they did not have the motivation to do it continuously, so we began to pose challenges”, explains the president of Activoz.
“The first thing we did -he continues- was the climb to Mount Teide, then we did the Camino de Santiago, and this was the next one we had proposed, but COVID forced us to stop for two years. Now we have been able to resume it and everything has been spectacular, the mountains, the landscapes, and the boys”.
For this challenge, Activoz has received the support of numerous brands, as well as the Cabildo de Tenerife, an institution that has wanted to support the objective of this challenge, which is none other than to give visibility to this group and generate social awareness of its capabilities as well as promote healthy living habits and offer participants a successful experience that stimulates their self-esteem.
programs
Activoz has three intervention programs. The first is ActivaT, in operation since 2017, aimed at promoting an active and quality life for people with functional diversity.
The second program is that of DesarrolloT – intended for the psychoeducational intervention of people with functional diversity.
And the last one is the ImpresionaT workshop, a training center for adults with disabilities focused on binding and printing. “Our project began in 2017 and we have been growing day by day thanks to the support of family and friends of our boys and girls, the neighbors of our community, the volunteers, who without them it would have been impossible, to companies that bet for inclusion and to all the people who believe in our project”, they explain from the Activoz association.
The association is made up of a group of professionals from different fields who work in favor of functional diversity. It provides service to almost 200 users with the intention of improving the quality of life of this group and their families, who generally have few spaces where they can develop physically and socially in a relaxed and leisure environment. They have their headquarters in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, in El Sobradillo.
