Highlight of Summer? Hole in the Wall!

On August 21, a group of 21 Iraqi children with serious medical conditions arrived in a whole new world, plucked out of a war zone and plunked down in a summer camp in Italy. Their goal? To just be kids for the first time in their lives.

"These diseases brutalize and isolate [children] because people treat them as sick," said Bob Forrester, president and CEO of Newman's Own Foundation, which sponsored the week-long camp in partnership with Hole in the Wall Camps, Project Hope, Dynamo Camp and the Iraqi Pediatric Hospital in Basra. That's why the concept of this camp is that "there's no such thing as a sick child, only a child who happens to be sick."

Dynamo Camp in Tuscany is one of a network of "Hole in the Wall" camps across the U.S. and Europe, which together served 17,000 campers with medical problems free of charge this year. Another 10,000 to 12,000 children participated in off-camp programs in countries around the world.

The camps are the inspiration of Paul Newman, identified by the Association of Hole in the Wall Camps as his "living legacy." According to Forrester, Newman's vision was about kids being kids, regardless of their challenges: "Paul said 'I want a place where children can raise a little hell, as children are supposed to do.'"

The Iraqi campers did just that, joining 30 Italian and 20 German kids with similar medical problems for a week of ropes courses, zip lines, art projects, archery, swimming and other time-tested summer fun. Every Hole in the Wall camp runs on the "no accessibility challenge" principle: all activities must be accessible to all campers. The outdoor pool, for instance, is heated so that children with sickle cell anemia won't go into painful crisis as a result of getting cold.

A Deeper Side of Pediatric Medicine

The Iraqi campers, mostly cancer and thalassemia patients, traveled with 13 Iraqi doctors and counselors, whose experiences in the camp environment were considered just as important as the campers'. The idea was to improve the network of support services available in Iraq.

"We're not trying to bring children out of countries," Forrester noted. "We're trying to keep them in. We're careful to make sure they have a network to go back to. The doctors and social workers go back with them." And by having this experience, "the doctors will understand a deeper side to pediatric medicine."

Improving Iraq's medical establishment is in fact a major goal of the program. Forrester realized what a critical need there was in 2003, when Paul Newman turned to him after the U.S. invasion and asked how he could be helpful. Newman was interested in working in the Middle East because he wanted to help address the psycho-social trauma experienced by children in war. Additionally, Forrester said, "Americans have to step up and take responsibility."

Forrester reached out to his network of contacts around the world and learned from his friend Bob Arnot, a medical reporter for NBC embedded in Baghdad, that the incidence of childhood cancer was much greater in Iraq than in the U.S.

"The medical system in Iraqi was degraded to the point of being completely ineffective," said Forrester. "There was one Western-trained pediatric oncologist in the country."

Newman and Forrester started by creating Project Lifeline Iraq, which brought Iraqi children with cancer to King Hussein Cancer Center in Amman, Jordan, where the staff of five or six pediatric oncologists could treat cancer for one-tenth the cost of treatment in the U.S.

The project, which treated 110 children and retrained many doctors and nurses who accompanied the young patients, also helped found the Iraqi Pediatric Hospital in Basra, focused on pediatric oncology, where all of the campers were being treated while at home. The hospital has already expressed interest in being involved with the Hole in the Wall Hospital Outreach program, which brings the benefits of camp to hospitals at low cost.

Summer of Opportunity

While Project Lifeline Iraq was developing, Newman and Forrester started wondering how they could, in Forrester's words, "get these kids to experience the power of what the Hole in the Wall camp is about." They felt that living in a conflict zone shouldn't disqualify these kids from the benefits of camp that kids in other countries take for granted. As Forrester put it, "camp should be available to all children regardless of external circumstances, like for instance, a war."

It so happened that Dynamo Camp was being established in Italy around the same time, and the pair realized it would be a perfect location for a camp involving Iraqi kids. Forrester discovered that Italians tend to be comfortable dealing with the Arab world, and that many Arabs go there for medical treatment.

Newman's Own Foundation found an Iraqi doctor to work with the hospital in Basra, the Ministry of Health and the families of patients. His main task was to explain the concept of camp — an idea that doesn't exist in Iraq — and help families understand why they should send their sick children far away.

Letting their children go was very difficult, but, Forrester said, "the courage of the families was saying 'I don't want my child to do this but I don't want my child denied this opportunity.'"

The Magic of Camp

And what an opportunity it was. The kids immediately began mixing; Italians, Germans and Iraqis — including Christians, Sunni Muslims and Shia Muslims — all played together.

"What we call 'the magic of the camp' was evident within hours," said Forrester. "The children were having a hell of a time. Even on the first day some of the Iraqi doctors said 'I can already see changes in them.'"

These children, who have faced severe challenges in their short lives, found in camp a new sense of freedom.

Forrester was touched by a tiny but monumental change in one particular camper. "There was one young girl who had a cardiovascular accident," he said. "Her movements were not good. When she arrived she had her head down on the table in the dining hall. But within two hours she was on the dance floor making these very small movements. That was inspirational to me. This is important because usually she is teased and pushed and she can't understand why. 'Why don't kids want to be friends with me?' She's now surrounded by friendship, surrounded by kids just like her."

Paul Newman's vision of giving sick kids a chance to be just plain kids has, it turns out, the ability to touch distant horizons. This summer's experience at Dynamo cut across the strata of illness, trauma, culture and religion to offer a feeling of joy and a promise of possibility.

"If you bring people together around children, all barriers break down," Forrester noted. "The children will know there's hope out there."

Photos courtesy of Dynamo Camp