A wheelie good day out for disabled participants in the PIM marathon ****************************************************************************************** * A wheelie good day out for disabled participants in the PIM marathon ****************************************************************************************** A child in a wheelchair, in a marathon race sounds tough, but thanks to Scott Keel more an handicapped children can enjoy the feeling of passing the finish line in the PIM marathon. group of medical students will be pushing strollers in the marathon and half marathon and time to join in the training. How did you get the idea to run a marathon with children in wheelchairs? After my second year at medical school I had  major surgery and I needed to take one year mentally handicapped children. While I was there I realized that there is a gigantic need looking for information. A video [ URL "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAPz3ZB7kzw"] changed my outlook toward what that if you give a little bit of opportunity to those kind of children, their lives can ch What happened after your return to the Czech Republic? When I came back, I realized that you never see people in wheelchairs included in activiti somehow still outside of society. Living in Prague, I want, not just to be a student, I wa active citizen in a city that I will call home for the next three years. So I found Psáry www.lagunapsary.cz/index.asp"] and started to meet the children and developed a working pa them. Later I came up with the idea that I would do something like the father and son did in the never really been done in the Czech Republic before. It took a long time, but then finally permission to push wheelchairs. It is the first time they allowed wheelchairs in the race. but we only had one month to raise the money – 1500 Euros for the two strollers and fees f race etc, If you do charity you have to have some kind of inner passion in your heart, thi you ignore. The race last year was fantastic. Pepe, one of the participating children, wor the race for two weeks every night to bed, he really enjoyed it. Another participants father came to me after the race and told me that it was the first ti helped him. PIM marathon 2010 What are your plans for this year? After last year’s success we are now an official charity sponsor and partner of the PIM. W charity which raises money, we are a charity which actually participates. This year I am r we have got a couple of new partnerships – parent project [ URL "http://parentproject.cz/" [ URL "http://www.zdravotni-klaun.cz/index.php"] and “Fofrem na maraton [ URL "http://www. fofrem-na-maraton.html"] ”. After the race, because we will involve not just the children but also their families, we picnic for the family. Even a few family members will run in our special relay team. The n to include more people. We want people and society to see that they are also able to parti they just might need our legs. That more you are able to get them in the population’s eye, starts to fall, because anything you don’t see every day will always be strange. When you them, the strangeness will go away. It is like a smile that catches on, when one person sm you smile back. How is your training progressing as the marathon draws near? Running is always more of a mental thing than physical, so we are running in groups. This a group of about 35 runners, from which 85 percent are from the Third Faculty of Medicine. until the very end with children, they are pretty much used to being in the chairs. We run a week on the weekends and we have now five girls in our group. We run the marathon in teams, so if you get tired, you switch with others. They then look involved, we give them high fives, make sure they are comfortable, but it is not a race fo there not to compete for time. We just keep running, keep pushing and as you get closer to line, you get the energy and you don’t know where it comes from. In the big races you real special. PIM marathon 2010 Did you get any support from your faculty? The Third Faculty helped us last year financially and I promised that if  it will be succe not have to ask for money this year. The faculty bought a stroller with nice big wheels an contracted it to Psáry. I have designed this in the way that when I have graduated and end where, the school and the students can hopefully continue with the partnership I have buil last for a long time. This year we will be in the real marathon, pushing up to eight kids the half marathon. What are your plans for the future? After medicine I want to be more involved with the special needs population and I want to doctors look at this population. I want to organize a symposium for doctors and specialist Syndrome Society to speak to doctors and try to educate the doctors and students about thi At the faculty you learn how to treat paediatric cases, you don’t really learn how to trea special needs. Running With Those That Can’t o.s. [ URL "http://www.runningwiththosethatcant.com/"] is a gateway to becoming better students, better citizens and for many of its members, better d University and other local universities, they set out to break the social taboo about the and more fulfilled lives. Our goal is to improve the quality of life for all citizens! Thi Mission statment: Help us in our mission to integrate individuals with physical, intellectual and developmen into all aspects of daily life. One way to accomplish this goal is to actively help these participate in sporting events through the use of adaptive strollers and a running team of It is our hope that this team approach will greatly increase awareness of the challenges t faces on a daily basis, while also increasing disability awareness, acceptance and inclusi P.K.