Youth to announce amount of funds he has raised from water-skiing for cancer patients |03 August 2018

• “Cancer can happen to anyone of us, so we need to give in order to receive”

As part of the upcoming celebrations on La Digue for the feast of the Assumption of Mary on August 15, 21-year-old Diego Rose Cardon from Praslin will be announcing the amount of funds collected from the multiple water-skiing crossings he has made since March this year in an attempt to raise funds for cancer patients in Seychelles.

A stall will also be set up on this day where t-shirts with a logo representing support for cancer patients will be on sale; all funds collected from this activity will be donated to the same cause, and Diego urges everyone to come and show their support.

The money collected from Diego’s crossings will be used to pay for any necessary medical resources that are currently lacking, e.g. medications and machinery. With enough funds, it is also hoped that a local health professional can be sent abroad to train and specialise in cancer treatment.

While happy that there has been some funds raised, Diego feels that there seems to be an unfortunate culture of mistrust among people in Seychelles, which in turn makes many who are capable of giving, reluctant to donate to charity.

It was on March 31 this year that Diego made his first water-skiing crossing between Baie Ste Anne jetty and Eden Island for the purpose of raising funds. It took him 57 minutes to do the 49-kilometre crossing and according to Diego, this was the first time that this has been done in Seychelles. Although he has been water-skiing for the past 7 years, Diego trained for about 4 months for this long-distance crossing.

During his time at a boarding school in England, Diego explains that he was part of a group which had a charity organisation; as a result he was exposed to a lot of talk about charity and learnt about the needs of different groups of people. This encouraged him to help others, but the inspiration to specifically help cancer patients came after Diego’s own mother was diagnosed with cancer in 2016.

“My mum was able to fund her treatment herself, but many don’t have the money and have to wait for the government to send them abroad for treatment. I want to help as I don’t want anyone else to lose their mum to cancer. If I myself was diagnosed with cancer, I would want to be treated here, with the support of my family. This is what inspired me to raise funds, and since I love the sea and water-skiing, I thought of doing crossings to raise the money”.

Diego’s proud parents have supported his cause and given him everything he has needed for it since day one, and he shares that without them, this would never have happened. He adds that he is also very proud of himself, for his own hard will.

He points out that he is not any better than other young people in Seychelles, but that the youth can do so much more for the country, noting that they have the potential to engage in various activities which can help to raise money for people in need. Additionally, he feels that the government should help promote such activities, which in turn will help to reduce social ills among young people.

In an attempt to encourage more people to donate towards cancer patients, Diego reminds us that cancer can happen to anyone of us, so we need to give in order to receive; by giving something today, someone in our own families can have something tomorrow. He adds that being a small country, we are like a big family, hence we should not think twice about helping others.

For those who would like to donate towards this charity, the bank account details are as follows:

Barclays Bank

Account name: Soroptimist Club

Account number: 1220281

Ref: WaterSkiing over Cancer

For more information:

Email: diegorosecardon@gmail.com

Follow: ‘Diego Cardon’ on Instagram and ‘Diego Rose Cardon’ on Facebook.