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The Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust is a registered charity set up with its main aim to help children and young adults aged between 8-24 to regain their confidence through sailing. It was founded in 2003 after Ellen MacArthur went sailing with another charity in France with the same aim. It runs a number of various types of trips ranging from residentials to one-day trips. Every year in the summer, the trust takes around 300 young people sailing. The trust also now works with every young person's cancer treatment centre in the United Kingdom. The trust's head office is in East Cowes. The trust receives no government funding, and relies entirely on public and corporate support to operate. There is no charge made to any of the young people who sail with the trust. Often the young people that sail with the trust have spent long periods of time in hospital and can be suffering from low self-esteem on top of missing out on large chunks of their childhood. The emphasis of the trips is on teamwork and fun, with sailing as the perfect catalyst. Sailing offers a new experience in a small and intimate environment, which gives the young people the space to assert themselves without the chance of getting lost in the group. There are many issues for all young people that revolve around body image, but these are magnified for those who have been through treatment, particularly when reaching teenage years. The treatments for cancer can include side effects such as temporary hair loss and weight gain as well as permanent effects like scarring, amputation or brain damage, and the result can often manifest itself in very low self-esteem or confidence. When the young people come on the trips they aren't alone in having no hair, or a scar on their leg, and it becomes much less of an issue. Everyone on their trip will have been through a similar experience and generally understand better than any of their friends from home what it is like to go though such a life-changing experience as cancer, often offering advice and support. These trips can be a huge step forward in regaining the independence often lost during long periods of hospitalisation. This can be especially significant if the young person was diagnosed having just reached puberty, the time when they were beginning to assert themselves to the world. At that point, to subsequently find yourself having to rely on parents or nurses for everything you need can be incredibly hard to accept, and this is on top of dealing with a life-threatening illness. The highlight of many people's trips is cooking for themselves, and these small steps, along with the larger ones like being in control of a yacht, help move the young person forward from the feeling of 'institutionalisation' the hospital can sometimes leave on them, helping to establish the attitude that they can actually achieve a lot, and more importantly achieve it by themselves. After sailing once with the trust the young people are invited back at least once, and often several times to different water-based activities, to strengthen friendships, offer support and learn more about sailing as their recovery continues. Many young people will eventually return as volunteers, becoming aspirational role models for those sailing for the first time who have rarely met anyone now several years off treatment and doing well. ==Sailing trips== 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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