Transdev’s light rail operation in Barcelona, TRAM, has launched a charity video to help the Asociación Española de ELA (adEla – Spanish ALS Association) in its fight to improve quality of life for ALS patients and wish everyone happy holidays on social media.
Sharing this video starring TRAM team members helps raise awareness of the association and a €10,000 donation will help cover the needs of one person diagnosed with ALS for approximately one year.
Carrying on the tradition from the past few years, the TRAM team was invited to propose projects to the Corporate Social Responsibility Department, and then the whole staff voted on them. A driver on the Trambaix network proposed the Asociación Española de ELA (adEla), which then received the most votes from colleagues.
The video, made to wish everyone happy holidays, features 36 TRAM employees from all departments who volunteered to participate. Through post-production, the video finds an original solution to show how their mouths move while singing a Christmas carol, without taking their masks off, at this time when it is difficult to see our whole faces.
The song for the video is a cover of the Christmas classic Jingle Bells, with the lyrics adapted to reflect our current situation with these pandemic holidays and to convey how much we look forward to riding the tram again under normal conditions. The singers are three TRAM workers who volunteered their time.
TRAM’s charity in its Christmas wishes with the Asociación Española de ELA
Once again, this year, TRAM has put a charity in its Christmas wishes. Last year, it was 1.000 y una Nineka, ni un niño con cáncer; in 2018, the Pasqual Maragall Foundation; in 2017, the Red Cross Catalonia campaign Alianza Humanitaria para la Alimentación Infantil; and this year, the TRAM team has chosen to help adEla with a €10,000 donation to cover the needs of an ALS patient for roughly one year.
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is an irreversible degenerative disease of the central nervous system and the most serious disease affecting the motor neurons. ALS progressively disables the patient, as all their muscles needed for any day-to-day activity atrophy and become paralyzed. Plus, patients with this disease normally live at home and are dependent on those around them.
Each year, over 900 people die from complications of ALS and 900 new cases are diagnosed. Between 3,000 and 4,000 people in Spain suffer from this disease.
The Asociación Española de ELA focuses its efforts on helping people who have been diagnosed with ALS and their families through information and guidance, providing services at their centers and in patients’ homes, as well as technical aids to improve their wellbeing and quality of life throughout the physical and emotional changes this disease causes.
An extensive network of professionals and volunteers provide respiratory care, occupational therapy, training for caregivers and relatives, physical therapy, psychological care, speech and language therapy, postural and emotional workshops, and handling palliative care the patient wants and is not covered under Social Security, among others.