Awareness campaign through Birthday Calendars

“Fundashon Alton Paas” has started a campaign to raise awareness about the life with spinal cord injury. The awareness is through birthday calendars. A birthday calendar as usual is a calendar where birthdates can be noted to remember you birthdays of family, loved ones, etc.

The contents that Fundashon Alton Paas has added to the birthday calendar are:
• 12 Original photo made of 3 persons with spinal cord injury
• 12 Original quote inspired by Alton Paas
These will be aligning so that every month will have a picture and a quote that will represent a specific month in a year.

January

Quote: Happiness is you so be yourself.
Pictured in photo: Alton Paas chatting with friends
Inspiration: Alton had noticed in many people around him, who some-times went through hard moments in their situation but at that time they however were laughing. If for those moments we laugh, so why can we not be happy when we want? It is something that’s living in us. We, ourselves is the only one who can allow us to be happy.

February

Quote: If God wants you in this world, even a bullet through your hart wouldn’t kill you.
Pictured in photo: Jurvis Lourens – in front of his home
Inspiration: Being a lot in hospitals and rehabilitation centers and looks at how many things a person must pass and survives, sometimes this is a miracle. The case of Alton himself is a miracle and that means that Alton did not need to go yet and nothing can change that. We are in this world for a reason. Every day there are people dying but there are still something we have to comply with and nobody can change that until god decides other.

March

Quote: Limitations are imagination.
Pictured in photo: Steven Cristina driving his car with a special adaptation to handle the gas and brake.
Inspiration: Often what is limitation for one is freedom for the other. It is our mind that defines what is limitation. It is not a fact that something is limitation because we, ourselves can choose to look at that limitation as a possibility.

April

Quote: Happiness is so powerful even cancer can’t defeat it. So mysterious no one can define it, so inexpensive anyone can afford it, so satisfactional it last longer than a climax, so contagious no one can avoid it.
Pictured in photo: Steven Cristina, Jurvis Louren and Alton Paas chatting and laughing at Chirino Ballpark
Inspiration: Happiness is very broad and complex but nevertheless very simple that it will always result in a positive side. It’s not something you can explain. Something in nature that lives in all life there.

May

Quote: Time is Opportunity.
Pictured in photo: Alton Paas – Hydrotherapy @ pier Marie Pampoen
Inspiration: Several times we say “time is money” to emphasize that each time you lose is money lost. This hinders a person from using his time the best he can because every second of one’s life is an opportunity to live and if you do not live it and not comply with it, it will end up like you were not existing.

June

Quote: Sunset is not only the end of a day but the beginning of dreams.
Pictured in photo: Jurvis Lourens – Watching sunset @ KAE
Inspiration: After all ending there is a beginning and at the end of the day we go to sleep and dream, that helps us to create thoughts and ambitions to do something with it when we wake up.

July

Quote: You shall find happiness in the most unexpected places.
Pictured in photo: Steven Cristina – Distributing religion book
Inspiration: Sometimes we create barriers around us that hinders us to get where we need to get to receive what we deserve.

August

Quote: Opportunities are to make the full of it and not the fool of you.
Pictured in photo: Jurvis Lourens, Alton Paas and Steven Cristina – Climbing hill @ Fort Nassau
Inspiration: All opportunities present to help us grow. An opportunity is never to drop back.

September

Quote: What the mind believes the body achieves.
Pictured in photo: Alton Paas –Standing in a standingframe
Inspiration: What is in our mind defines our actions. A smoker can tell that he is smoking to relax because his mind tells him that. A vegetarian can say he cannot eat meat because his mind tells him that. The thoughts we have changed completely the world in which we are and let every action we take to square with our thoughts.

October

Quote: There doesn’t exist any limitation for the power and strength of your will.
Pictured in photo: Jurvis Lourens – Running @ statue of Tula
Inspiration: The will of a person is the desire to do something. The strength of his will compare with the capacity of his physical strength. There is nowhere his will will burned or get tired. Every moment it is working to achieve.

November

Quote: It’s better to seek life in the things you do rather than only seek things to do in life.
Pictured in photo: Steven Cristina – Marriage
Inspiration: Sometimes we look for different things to keep us happy, to satisfy and reconcile ourselves, where we have something specific in each of us that fills us with more different things together. Unfortunately every time it is easier to find many things to bring good feelings instead of actually finding what makes us truly complete.

December

Quote: We are not on this world for ourselves, for everything we do affects everyone around us.Even if you know it or not, good or wrong, if you like it or not someone will always be touched, influenced or even victimized by your actions.
Pictured in photo: Jurvis Lourens, Steven Cristina and Alton Paas –Cheers @ Tutu Tango
Inspiration: We, as people are in this world for others.You can call him neighbor, teacher, colleague, enemy, family, customer, stranger, everyone is tethered to another in one way or the other. For example if there were no passengers there was no pilot, if there were no patients, there was no doctor, if there was no students, there was no teacher. At the other hand if a person decides not to work but enters a house that he sees to take what he needs, it will affect the life of the homeowner. If you choose to laugh and laugh so hard because you feel happy, the ones around you will also start laughing.

The birthday calendar will put the person in Curacao with disability (especially spinal cord injury) more in picture. A person who is born and lived without disability and because of an unexpected situation is now in a disability situation.

Many times limited thoughts in this situation may cause feelings of shame for a person with disability here in the community of Curacao with the result that he will hide himself.
In this situation of disability in Curacao we must live with the facts that our community still lacks a high grade of acceptance and respect for persons with a disability because of a spinal cord injury.  That’s why awareness is part of the objectives of our foundation to achieve an enhancement of the grade of acceptance and respect in our community.
The photos and quotes put more emphasis on the happy and positive sights to inspire all those who have a spinal cord injury and give the hope that there will be always great possibilities in life. Besides, the community of Curacao can see and learn that a person with spinal cord injury also has a life and can live this life equal to or more complete than a person without limitations.

With the above mentioned ‘Fundashon Alton Paas’ shall
– inspire others with spinal cord injury that sometimes when you have less you can achieve more;
– inspire also those who do not have any kind of physical limitations but sometimes put limitations for themself, that they also can achieve more.
We are all human beings and we have our difficulties. This birthday calendar exists therefore, to inspire humankind as a whole and additionally fulfill our slogan ‘without limitations’.

The birthday calendar has 2 sizes, a wall calendar with A4 size and by opening it, it turns to an A3 size. The other one is a desktop size and they have a symbolic prize of fl. 30,=. Initially this price was intended to cover expenses of our first project for the 3 young men with SCI. Now there are still calendars available to purchase. The income will be used to help the foundation to achieve its goals.

The campaign was launched through the baptism of the calendar on February 23, 2013. After this date all calendars were obtainable at Bookshops, Samsom – Bruna – Mensing Caminada – Beep Beep Rio Canario, Public activities such as ‘Marshe di Salu’, Queensday Celebration and Food Festival, Activities organized by the foundation itself, like information night and day of sale.