Over The Wall recently celebrated its 20th anniversary at the BAFTA building in Piccadilly, London, where guests raised an enormous £20k through donations and an auction.

Special guests, trustees, volunteers, staff and many of the children and families that have benefitted from camp, gathered at the event to celebrate the wonderful work and achievements of OTW. Joe Woods, the man who founded our charity with Paul Newman was also present to celebrate at the event.

Since 1999, we have provided free residential camps for children with serious illness, allowing thousands of children to have life changing camp experiences, enabling them to- ‘raise a little hell’- as Paul Newman once put it.

In our first year, Over The Wall took just 25 children with cancer to camp, now we cater for over 130 different illnesses, and this year, to celebrate the our 20th anniversary, we broke our own records taking over 1,000 children to camp in 2019.

Kevin Mathieson, the CEO of Over The Wall said, “This event has been a wonderful celebration of all the lives that our charity has touched. It has been a great pleasure to look back at the milestones and achievements of the charity, and to hear the voices of those truly impacted by our cause. Since Paul Newman and Joe Woods founded the charity in 1999, we have seen exponential growth, and each year, we aim to grow further and to help more and more children, their siblings and their families cope with serious illness.”

Camper parent, Pokuaa Osei-Nyametie, was present at the event, and her daughter Afriyie made a presentation, describing how camp affected her. Pokuaa said, “It has been an honour to attend Over The Wall’s 20th anniversary. My daughter attended camp, and as a result became so self-assured – she learnt to love herself. She developed self-value and discovered that, despite her condition, she is alright and that not only can make friends, she can also have a good laugh- she can be a child and she can be silly!”