Summer camps, blogs, meetings... - for young coeliacs!

A Coeliac Youth of Europe (CYE) é uma organização que reúne os grupos de jovens celíacos da Europa, incluindo a APC Jovem. A CYE faz lobbying pelos interesses dos jovens celíacos junto de diversas instituições, e dinamiza vários projectos e eventos. Anualmente, a CYE e um dos grupos nacionais organizam um campo de Verão para jovens celíacos pertencentes aos grupos-membros.

Publicamos, em duas partes, uma carta de Hanna Koponen que dá notícia de eventos envolvendo os celíacos europeus. Hanna Koponen é a directora financeira e um dos três elementos do Youth Committee, a direcção da CYE.

Greetings from Europe! My name is Hanna Koponen, I'm working for Coeliac Youth of Europe (CYE) as part of the Youth Committee and decided to write this article: to introduce some of the great activities aimed for young coeliacs in Europe. If you find yourself interested in such things - don't hesitate to contact us and ask more! Contact us, CYE: cye.board@gmail.com and visit the CYE website: www.cyeweb.eu for more information!


The first 100% gluten-free café in Sweden
The coeliac youth organization of Sweden, SCUF, has a long history, a lot of young members and a big organization behind the several seminars, camps, meetings and other activities for young coeliacs annually. The next occupation will be the first 100% gluten-free café in Sweden. The café, Scufferiet, will open its doors in March 2010 in Stockholm, the capital of Sweden. The café will offer gluten-free cakes, but also the possibility to eat lunch and buy bread and cakes take-away. It will be a model for other cafés how to serve gluten-free customers well.
It will be more than just a café; it will be a place for SCUF members to meet, once a month the member group of Stockholm will arrange activities in the café. Also the annual meeting of SCUF will be held nearby and SCUF will have a new office next to the café. More information about the SCUF website www.scuf.se.

Italy and more than football
Football is for sure the most popular sport in Italy - we all know that. It's more than just football also for coeliacs: it is a well coordinated AIC (Associazione Italiana Celiachia) project at a national level and the young coeliacs participate too. How does it work?
A youth representative Francesco Valitutti from AIC explains: "Well, almost each regional coeliac group has its own team. My coeliac football team trains once a week, sometimes playinh against other non-professional teams, for exampls lawyer's team or police football team at regional level."
And how do you promote coeliac through football? Francesco continues: "When we play, we always have our shirt with our logo on, and everyone who doesn't know who we are (it still happens, unfortunately), just asks and we answer and explain. We also give leaflets about coeliac disease to the opposite team, in order to have more and more people correctly informed. Moreover, we often use to plat against a small village football team, and I underline that especially in small villages there is less awareness about coeliac disease: having a coeliac team playing there rises up lots of curiosity...".
"Sometimes we play against other regional coeliac teams, spending all day together, having lunch and fun somewhere. And in June it's time for the annual coeliac football cup: We meet other coeliac football teams somewhere across Italy and play, eat glutenfree and have good time together, catching also media attention. The winner becomes The Italian Coeliac Society Football Team and represents coeliac society during charity football events playing against famous singers, actors and ex-football players; they also play against foreign teams for charity. Maybe one day there will be an international event!"

Sem Espiga - the success blog from Portugal
The Portuguese coeliac organization started to put up a youth group just a few years ago. Their blog Sem Espiga has become a success in a short time: it did reach 39 000 visits during it's first year of existence, which is huge and tells, there is certainly a need for youth activities in Portugal. In street language, "sem espiga" means "without worries", but it means also "without spike", the part of wheat. The blog is about coeliac news, the youth activities, recipes, stories from young coeliacs, information articles... anything concerning young coeliacs. It's a good exampl, that the beginning of coeliac youth activities doesn't always needs to be huge to be a success!

Primeira parte