It is with this spirit that this year TORX® supports EMERGENCY, donating the proceeds from the sale of the charity bibs of TOR330 – Tor des Géants® to buy life jackets for Life Support, EMERGENCY’s ship that conducts search and rescue missions in the Mediterranean. Saving human lives in danger is a commitment that goes beyond flags or borders, peoples or nations, sea or mountain, children, men or women: it is something that has to do with humanity, in all its meanings.
Every year TORX® sells charity bibs to support organisations that dedicate their activity to others, and this year VDA Trailers want to acknowledge EMERCENCY’s commitment choosing it as the beneficiary of the sale of the 20 bibs for TOR330. Runners that decide to support this initiative have time until 30 June to buy their charity bib.Life Support is EMERGENCY’s safe and rescue vessel saving lives in the Central Mediterranean, the world’s most dangerous migration route: according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), over 20,000 people have died or disappeared there since 2014, with more than 90 per cent of deaths due to drowning, and over 1,300 people died or disappeared along the route in 2022 alone. The ship can hold up to 175 rescued passengers, in addition to its crew.
The rescued people are welcomed as passengers on the covered main deck, which has been refitted from scratch and installed a clinic, toilets, beds and benches. The main deck leads out onto the boat deck, an open space of around 970 square feet with benches and shaded by canvas, where people first come on board after they are rescued. This is an important area for the medical staff, where they assess each person’s state of health with the same triage methods used in the hospitals. Life Support’s team is made of 27 people, and it includes a mission coordinator, two nurses, a doctor, two cultural mediators, and two rescuers.The life jackets that will be bought with the donations from TORX® runners are essential life-saving devices that will equip Life Support to rescue children, men and women risking their life in the sea.
“It is not the first time that proceeds from charity bibs of TOR330 are donated to EMERGENCY, one of the more active and known humanitarian organisations in the world – Alessandra Nicoletti, VDA Trailers president, comments. Every year we want to support defined projects and be sure that donations actually cover the costs for charity deeds. Rescue at sea is similar to the one in the mountains: lives of children, women and men who hope for a better future for themselves and their families are saved. Every life jacket that we will be able to buy can be a life that we will help to save”.“We decided to sail with our ship, Life Support, to be present in the Central Mediterranean, the world’s most lethal migration route: there is a war too. We at EMERGENCY, be it in the streets of Kabul or Khartoum or among the waves of the Mediterranean, have always the same task: whoever is in danger must be saved – Paola Feo, EMERGENCY’s volunteer manager. From the beginning, Life Support has saved 619 people. Each one has a story, often a story of violence. They all left their homes hoping to find a better future, which starts in the exact moment as our SAR team hands them the life jackets”.