IBCPC Outreach Croatia

IBCPC outreach program in Croatia was initiated by IBCPC’s vice president Lucia De Ranieri in February 2024, with the purpose of promoting dragon boating for breast cancer survivors in Zadar, and informing, educating, and motivating medical community in Zadar, Croatia about the benefits of dragon boating among survivors. The initiative was approved by IBCPC Board in March 2024 and activities around planning and organizing this event started from there on both ends: Lucia on behalf of IBCPC, and Croatia team on behalf of the host – Dragonboat Klub Zadar, Croatia.

Preparing an even like this for the first time here in Croatia was pretty time consuming and labour intensive but we did it with commitment and excitement! We managed to get two major sponsors for our event: Zadar’s County Health Authority and City of Zadar Sports Department, who are both players in promoting and supporting projects in health and sport.

The concept of this outreach included several activities over a two-day program. The first day included a workshop with 7 guests speakers including topics about breast cancer in Croatia, and BC and dragon boat sport through IBCPC movement. The second day included a dry land paddling clinic and paddling in a dragon boat for all participants.

The best news for us here in Zadar was that our guests and presenters were to be the IBCPC president Meri Gibson from New Zealand, and vice-president Lucia De Ranieri from Italy. Also, thanks to Lucia’s commitment and effort we had 22 breast cancer survivor paddlers guests from six other countries who participated in both days of the outreach (Italy, UK, Serbia, Austria, Germany and Belgium)! That was truly amazing and gave this event a special importance.

So, with nineteen girls from Dragonboat Klub Zadar, we had 40 survivors and other paddlers from Zadar attending the workshop and participating in paddling clinic! Both days were a great! Everyone was thrilled, excited and happy. The joy of sharing the experience and knowledge of this amazing sport was palpable all the time!

Our team members secured accommodation for all visiting survivors, and spent all their free time with our guests having coffee together and dinning together. DBKZ team was thrilled and honoured to have been a part of this event and hosted survivors from around Europe and the world.

So, what was accomplished with this Outreach program? Four major goals were achieved:

• promoted dragon boating for breast cancer survivors in Zadar and Croatia through the coverage of several major media: two TV stations, local newspapers, and a number of social media portals. Meri had an interview with the national TV station and was featured in a local newspaper.

• Informed and educated medical community in Zadar through Meri’s and Lucia’s presentations; representatives of medical community in Zadar (oncologist, nurses and physiotherapists) learned about the connection between breast cancer survivors and dragon boat sport, the history and current state of dragon boating in the world through the IBCPC.

• Inspired and motivated medical professionals in Zadar to promote benefits of dragon boating among survivors; right after the Outreach ended the chief oncologist from Zadar hospital decided to join the DBKZ team (as a survivor herself), and made a commitment to promote this sport to all her patients as post-medical therapy to improve their physical and mental health and general wellbeing.

• New friendships and connections were made between paddlers and established future cooperation between our teams within European countries; there is a plan to visit each other and participate in the dragon boating events in our countries, which may happen as early as next year.

As a team, and as pioneers in building the dragon boating community in Croatia among survivors and others, we want to thank IBCPC for this initiative and for coming to Croatia, spreading the word and helping us grow dragon boating in our country.

We are taking this oportunity to invite all IBCPC members who are planning to travel to Croatia and have Zadar on their itinerary to contact us, visit us and paddle with us in our beautiful city.

Paddles up!