Bâloise walks, pedals and runs to raise €10,000 for ALAN

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July 29, 2020. 5719 km in four weeks! Employees of the Bâloise Insurance Group in Luxembourg walked, pedalled, ran and sweated to help ALAN, the Luxembourg charity supporting those with rare diseases.

The challenge was up to the task. To ensure that the lockdown goes hand in hand with commitment, the The Bâloise Group employees offered to expend effort without counting, or rather to expend effort and count. Indeed, in June, they set themselves the target of reaching 5,000 km covered so that the Group’s Management could make a charitable donation to ALAN, the Luxembourg charity working to help people with rare diseases. The term ‘rare diseases’ covers some 7,000 different diseases which affect less than 5 out of 10,000 people each year and concerns some 30,000 patients in Luxembourg.

As a regular partner of ALAN, Bâloise saw this athletic challenge as an occasion to combine sport, health and charity work by making it possible for all its employees to join in (and not just the fittest among them!) at the same time as adopting protective measures and social distancing.

The smorgasbord of possible sports activities included: walking, jogging, rambling, walking the dog, cycling, going to work on an e-bike, etc. - anything counted as long as calories were burned, sweat materialised... and the kilometres were duly collected via a sports application (such as Strava, Garmin, etc.) connected to the Keep Moving platform.

5719 kms on the totalisers

What a success! More than 50 employees answered the challenge and counted their sporting exploits for the entire month of June, with excellent results: 5719 km in one month, across the country and even further afield.

The Bâloise employees therefore pulled off their challenge - 5000 km in one month - and are proud and happy to be able to make a donation of to ALAN, which Management rounded up to arrive at a total of €10,000 donated to the Association.

As Shirley Feider-Rohen, Chair of ALAN- Maladies Rares Luxembourg says, “Living with a rare disease, which is often little understood and changeable, is a constant challenge. Thanks to the generous support of Bâloise and its employees, we will be able to continue one of most important roles: improving the quality of life of people with rare diseases and ensuring that they can live as independently as possible.”