Climb For Life for a Happy Christmas packed with solidarity

This is an appeal and it's directed right at you. At you who is reading these words in front of the computer. It could be you. You might be the right person, the one who holds the definitive key to the problem. Just think about it for a second: perhaps somewhere around the world, right at this very instant, someone is waiting for you. Your "climbing partner", linked to you - and only to you - by life itself.

What connects the two of you is a series of protein, codified within your DNA and written into every cell in your body. This code is called HLA and is what makes our immune system work. The chances of finding two people with the same HLA code are slim: one in a hundred thousand.

There are loads of life-threatening diseases which can only be cured with bone marrow transplant, such as leukaemia, thalassemia, some forms of anaemia, some solid tumours, etc. The difficult thing in curing these diseases is finding a compatible donor: the donor's bone marrow must have exactly the same HLA code as that of the person waiting for the transplant, otherwise it's a no-go. Throughout the world there are currently only 18,520,126 potential bone marrow donors. In Italy a mere 333,909. Too few.

I have been waiting since 2009 to find a compatible donor. I'm lucky though, some people didn't manage to wait this long.

In 2010 the project Climb for Life was born with the aim of increasing the number of potential bone marrow donors: this campaign wishes to raise awareness amongst climbers about the real need for bone marrow transplant. Like last year we've created a fantastic T-shirt which deals with this issue. By acquiring and wearing it as much as possible you will support an idea which we must all be proud of: that of caring for the life of our partner, whoever he or she may be.


The T-shirts are available at the following Italian climbing walls
B-Side - Turin
Grande verde - Bassano del Grappa
King rock - Verona
La palestrina - Rubiera
La sciorba - Genova
Nuovo campo base - Brugherio
Palestra dei ragni - Lecco
Rock palace - Brescia
Rock spot - Milan
Rock time - Pistoia
Sportler - Silea
Vertigine - Sassuolo
Way out – Milan


To find out more check out www.climbforlife.it
In the hope that you decide it's worth it, I thank you all in advance.

Giovanni Spitale