We commend the work being done by Dubravka (Buba) Karlovic- Babic of Edmonton, Canada. She has been travelling to her native Croatia and working with local water sport residents to establish a breast cancer team there. She has even succeeded in securing a boat for this new team. We are working with Buba in planning an outreach clinic to Croatia to assist in building the sport there. We will also visit other countries in Europe that do not have breast cancer teams yet or who are in the throes of establishing them to conduct further outreach clinics. Our fingers are crossed that we will be free to travel in the northern hemisphere summer off 2022.
In Buba’s words:
“I have definitely made some progress! I was fortunate enough to meet some awesome people who were and are willing to help and support the initiative.
The team has been established and its legal / official status should be finalized few weeks.
We also have a FFB page Zadar Dragon Boat where post daily updates about our activities, mission, we promote health and exercise.
In addition, I had a couple of very successful conversations with the city officials and the port authorities regarding the spot for the boat to be parked/docked/stored which resulted in the approval of the location for the DB.
The last logistics that needs to be completed is the transportation of the Dragon Boat from Zagreb (the capital of Croatia to Zadar. That has been arranged with the Kayak & Canoe Clubs of Zagreb who will lend us their DB’s and equipment and will take care of the transport. If that all comes to fruition, we may start to paddle at the end of March or the beginning of April, and the project would have taken ONLY 5 months!!! AMAZING!
That's a brief update for now! I'll keep in touch and would definitely let you know when we are ready to submit the membership application. For now, we are a team without any funds and we will not be able to pay any costs related to any of the expenses”. There are rules for accessing any public funds here- you must be in existence for one year! So, hopefully next year”.
(Editor’s note: that’s a story we hear all too often.)
