José Marino Álvarez presides over the collective Pigeon Trail Project. Diagnosed of multiple sclerosis for more than ten years, appreciates that “People who suffer from this disease need to improve their quality of life, do things similar to the rest, enjoy good times, play sports and socialize. For this reason, they turn their reality upside down with activities aimed at raising awareness and “having a handle to hold on to in the worst moments,” explains Álvarez. The objective is to change the perception that society has about multiple sclerosis and, for this, they have planned this summer’s sports challenge. On August 13, a team of six athletes, five men and one woman, will run around the island of Tenerife. They will do it in a non stop format (without stops) and with short relays, to take as little time as possible. A motorhome will serve as support and transport vehicle to the next stage.
“With this challenge, we want to publicize everything we do and turn many things upside down,” says Jon Hernández, head of the association’s sports projects. He adds: “During the lockdown we did a virtual race where people ran inside their houses and then uploaded photos or videos to social media; some even completed half marathons inside a flat for the cause,” says Jon. Furthermore, every year, “In hundreds of popular races, our running partners take out the flag that identifies us at the finish line and podiums.”
In the eight years of existence of the NGO, it has gone from making itself visible through the baggage of runners, as in the beginning, to launching actions of home help, physiotherapy, psychology, basic necessities, techniques or access payment to sports complexes. Dioni Luis, responsible for assistance projects, underlines: «In addition, we have launched multiple actions. Among them Arte con EMociones, EMpláyate, «where we go to Las Teresitas and do movement therapy in the water»; EMúsica within you, a music therapy project, or EMrédate, which consists of providing home assistance to users according to their needs. From assistance care to household chores, accompaniment, socialization… Complemented with physiotherapy and psychological support. “As a result of the launch of this new service, two people have been hired,” says Luis.
“There was a time when we began to realize that the group of people with multiple sclerosis, in addition to living with the disease, which is already complicated, had to fight every day with a lot of obstacles and social stigmas”, Jose Marino emphasizes. For this reason, he explains, “we began to go to schools to explain our day-to-day, the fight against physical elements and, also, as a way to achieve the integration of the people around us.” The acceptance of the boys and girls was and is “spectacular”, he values. He emphasizes that “then we do a contest of stories about disability and sport, and the reception leaves us speechless every year,” says the president of the group. That’s where they have many times taken the “annual hastag, the word we wear on the pink supporter bracelet because children are very imaginative and supportive.”
Next August, the association intends to “make a lot of noise” and for the words multiple sclerosis to be heard, in addition to obtaining some funds and donations “to continue helping people who come to request it,” says José Isidro Santos, coordinator of actions for the Asociation.
Santos details: “Our financing comes from various sources: social contributions, private donations and public and private subsidies that we receive, in addition to other actions such as merchandising or the Christmas lottery.” However, he points out, “right now we have already acquired a social commitment that we cannot put aside and, therefore, we have to take actions through which any of these channels increases and consolidates.”
From La Orotava
The association was born in 2014 and is based in La Orotava. On May 30, they launched a contest on social networks called Your best slogan, coinciding with World Multiple Sclerosis Day, in which motivating phrases were sought to resist the disease. The pigeons have even bought a Joëlette, a kind of chair with wheels that is used to carry a passenger who cannot run. The volunteers who carry it do it for him or her on the mountain routes.
“We bring the trails closer to people who thought they would never return to the mountains,” says Isidro Santos, who reiterates: “running yes, of course we run, but we do it for a reason and the satisfaction is enormous, double.”
According to the Spanish Society of Neurology, multiple sclerosis is the second leading cause of disability among young people, after the scourge of traffic accidents. “These are quite alarming data, especially when many people suffer a real ordeal just to reach the diagnosis,” says Marino.
For this reason, its president values, “we believed it necessary to create an association that would not only promote and help clinical research and care for those who suffer from it, but also the normalization of the disease in a friendly, fun and, above all, close.”
It is possible to help the association through the website www.pichontrailproject.com and on the different social networks. The pigeons, as they call themselves, need it like air to, as they do in every action they project and develop, “turn multiple sclerosis around.”
The disease of a thousand faces
Multiple sclerosis is a neurological disease that affects the central nervous system. Every May 30, since 2009, the World Day is celebrated to make visible what is usually called the disease with a thousand faces, because not all people are affected in the same way or with the same symptoms. “This makes its diagnosis very difficult and even the way of relating between the people who suffer from it,” says the president of the Pichón Trail Project. According to the Spanish Association of Multiple Sclerosis, over 2,500,000 people have MS in the world, 770,000 in Europe. In Spain, it is estimated that some 55,000 may suffer from it. There is no objective cause for its diagnosis and, today, there is no cure. Those who suffer from it overcome themselves every day thanks to the solidarity of others and an unbreakable willpower.
