HISTORY – HOPE
The Hope Team East association was born in 2015 on an expedition to Cape Horn led by Stéphanie GEYER BARNEIX and the expedition leader Alexandra AMAND LE MOUEL.
She will tell you about it in a way that will give you back your confidence to face life’s difficulties, but remember that “thanks to the disease, to cancer” Stéphanie “has crossed and still crosses oceans” to feel alive, to give hope, to inspire.
It is on personal stories, life experiences that Stephanie and Alexandra founded the association Hope Team East in 2016 to enable people to live better with the disease through sport and surpassing themselves. After a year of exchange with health professionals from oncology care centers, the Landes cancer coordination center, with notably Sophie Sakwa, nurse coordinator, Dr. Maité Becerro Hallard and Dr. Patrick Joyeux, have designed a program of accompaniment towards the realization of a sports challenge for people undergoing and ending cancer treatment. From the very first year, their determination and intuition have been echoed: 1 health sport network under construction with the hospitals of Dax, Bayonne and the Belharra clinic, 4 physical and mental trainers and, above all, 20 Optimists, 20 sports challenges achieved. And yes, because in our country we don’t call these sick people sick but OPTIMIST.
“There is no small and big challenge, there is your challenge” it is on this sentence that Hope Team East seasons since 2017 with the support of the Fondation de France, the regional agencies of Health Landes and Pyrénées Atlantiques, the National Agency of Sport as well as local partners the community of communes Maremne Adour Côte Sud, the Town Hall of Capbreton for notably the first pink event on the Landes coast CAP EN ROSE and the hundreds of participants who like many others gave energy to support the association.
INCREDIBLE NUMBERS!
This coaching program runs from September to June of each year. It involves up to 45 Optimists, beginners, sportsmen, confirmed and their families in the realization of a sporting challenge on all the paths and playgrounds, ocean, lake, mountain, forest. The challenge is the pretext and motivation to practice physical activity and sports to better cope with the side effects of treatment, reduce stress, fatigue related to drug therapies and decrease the risk of death.to reduce the risk of recurrence.
In June 2021, 42 Optimist challenges have been achieved after 9 months of follow-up by a team of 16 professionals, 14 physical trainers and 2 mental trainers spread over the Landes and the Basque Country, from Parentis en Born, through Heugas, Arcangues to Hendaye. Carine, Sophie, Coline, Marianne, Jean, Thibault, Yann, etc. give back confidence, initiate, prepare physically, mentally, listen, boost, encourage, Valerie, Pierrette, Pauline, Sandrine, Jean Louis, Gérard, Gilles, etc.
In 2021, the Optimist sports challenges brought together more than 1,200 people, 1,200 supports brought to the association for the financing of our support programs through our two annual events organized with kind-hearted partners CAP EN ROSE in Capbreton, LE DÉFI DAY in Seignosse and many partner events.
Today, Hope Team East relies on more than 35 volunteers, two full-time employees, two trainees in adapted physical activity, two in communication and project management. Since 6 years, the network does not cease growing and the partners continue to be with us for the Optimist: the CERS of Capbreton, the coastal rescue association of Capbreton, Ocean Incentive, the nautical pole of Soustons, the association Courant’ Nature etc. An ecosystem determined to give hope HOPE, to give optimists the desire and self-confidence to achieve their sporting challenge.
NEW HORIZONS – TEAM
In 2021, new intentions emerge: “Together, we go further”. The association is committed to helping children and teenagers undergoing and completing cancer treatment to support them through sport. It is in connection with the coordination center of the Bordeaux University Hospital, Dr. Anne Notz Carrere and the local care centers, Dax, Mont de Marsan and Bayonne that the association has started for 6 months the first support programs based on the preparation of sports challenges. At the beginning of 2022, 3 teenagers, Super Optimist, started their accompaniment with initiation times to several sports with sports associations near their home: climbing, downhill skiing, boxing, etc. The challenges are defined, the physical and mental preparations are finalized for a paddle board crossing, a climbing challenge, a long hike. A challenge that brings the whole family to a new beginning and gives self-confidence, inspiration and the ability to believe in one’s dreams. This project is once again a TEAM, volunteers, professionals and partners determined to give back self-confidence, movement and well-being to children, adolescents and their families.
SUPER OPTIMIST support is complemented by a second action carried out within the care and therapy departments during the treatment of children and adolescents. In order to help children and teenagers to be better supported through sport, the association and its partners provide adapted sports and leisure equipment directly in the services. These equipments are mobile TOTEM Super Optimist with the colors of the association Hope Team East which allow to go towards the children and teenagers to facilitate the installation of physical exercises, games and collective sporting times framed by the care professionals, the educators in adapted physical activities. The first installations will take place in the pediatric oncology department at the Pellegrin University Hospital in Bordeaux on July 28, 2022, in the Bayonne Hospital and in the premises of the Entre parenthèse association in Mont de Marsan in September and October 2022. The association plans to make this equipment available in 9 different establishments in France and also in Tahiti! Why Tahiti? because Stéphanie and 5 other top sportswomen will cross their ocean to help finance the Super Optimist project!
Photo credit: Jérémie Gabrien
OUR FUNDRAISING – EAST
8000 km, 3 months of expedition, 6 waterwomen: this is the CAP OPTIMIST project which aims to contribute to the financing of the Super Optimist support programs and the installation of sport equipments within the care centers. What remains is why EAST ? Some say that it is because the sun rises in the EAST, others say that it was the course to follow during the crossing of the North Atlantic towards Capbreton in the Landes… For this new unprecedented crossing on a paddle board, the departure will be from Lima in January 2023. They do not leave alone, they take with them their families, the Optimists, the Super Optimists, some schools of the Landes and the Basque Country with the program “a challenge in my school” which allows a class and their teacher to project themselves and realize collectively a sports challenge, in 6 weeks. Unfeasible! Talk to Marie, Emmanuelle, Itziar, Alexandra, Margot and Stephanie, the 6 waterwomen involved in the Pacific crossing.
Thank you so much for your support and help