Altona Meadows boy Alex Gatt will join about 250 people from across Australia on Sunday at the 100th respite camp and open day hosted by Muscular Dystrophy Australia.
It will be the second camp for the 12-year-old Altona Primary School pupil.
His mother, Lina, said Alex was diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy at the age of two.
“He’s got a wonderful power wheelchair that gets him round – that’s basically his muscles,” she said. “He’s a happy, intelligent kid. He’s very friendly and gets on well with people, so the condition doesn’t restrict him as much as it possibly could.”
Ms Gatt said the week-long camp at Rowsley, near Bacchus Marsh, gave her and Alex a break and enabled him to enjoy fun activities with other children.
“When he goes off to camp I just shut off and don’t worry about him for a moment because I know he’s in really good hands,” she said.
“It’s relaxing for Alex. He needs to get away from us because it’s always one-on-one … a normal child might be able to go up to the shop by now on their own, but for him it’s really difficult.”
MDA has held four camps a year since 1989. With the exception of 2013, when MDA received a one-off federal government grant of $46,000, the camps have been funded by MDA or donors. This month’s camp was paid for by a $30,000 grant from the National Australia Bank and MDA’s fundraising activities.
MDA executive director Boris Struk said that without ongoing funding, next year’s camps were in jeopardy. “Despite repeated requests and submissions to government to help with the funding of students and campers, we have not been blessed with recurrent camp funding,” Mr Struk said.
