WHO WE ARE
Shake It Up Australia Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation established in 2011 to promote and focus on Parkinson’s Disease research here in Australia. We are a community funded charity, leaning on our partners and supporters to help us reach our goals of delivering better treatments, prevention strategies and ultimately finding a cure in the very near future.
Clyde Campbell was diagnosed with PD in 2009. After coming to terms with his prognosis, Clyde set out to learn as much as possible about Parkinson’s disease and what was being done worldwide to find a cure. Earlier this year Clyde embraced his entrepreneurial spirit and decided to join the action. After many months of research and communication (including a trip to Glasgow for the World Parkinson’s Congress), Clyde launched Shake it up Australia Foundation and partnered with The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, to increase awareness in Australia and increase funding towards finding a cure.
OUR VISION
Shake It Up Foundation Australia has one aim: to find a cure for Parkinson’s.
OUR PURPOSE
To fund research that advances treatments for Parkinson’s’ on the path to a cure.
OUR OBJECTIVES
Shake It Up Foundation Australia has five objectives:
ABOUT CLYDE
Clyde Campbell
Clyde Campbell was diagnosed at 44 with Parkinson’s. Originally from northern New South Wales, Clyde lives now with his wife and three children in Sydney, Australia.
Twenty-eight years ago Clyde started out as an industrial electronics apprentice in country NSW. Today Clyde runs his own company, Machinery Automation & Robotics. Clyde’s team of 60 staff services leading Australian and international clients from offices in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne. His vision for technology was the driving force behind his rapid progression from apprentice to CEO. Clyde is a man who likes to ‘get things done’.
Clyde was diagnosed in 2009, after noticing a tremor in his left hand holding notes when presenting at a company meeting. The question Clyde asks himself is one that more than 80,000 Australians with Parkinson’s have no doubt asked: “Why me?”
After coming to terms with his prognosis, Clyde set out to learn as much as possible about Parkinson’s and what was being done worldwide to find a cure.
Clyde has an entrepreneurial spirit and a vision for the future. He decided not to sit back and wait for the rest of the world to find a cure but to join the action. Clyde launched Shake it up Foundation Australia and partnered with The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, to increase awareness in Australia and increase funding towards finding a cure.
Australia has some of the world’s leading scientists specialising in Parkinson’s. What Australia needs now is financial assistance to get its research up and running. Support, funding and people like Clyde are what will make the difference.
ABOUT MICHAEL
Michael J. Fox
Michael J. Fox was born Michael Andrew Fox in 1961 to parents William and Phyllis in Edmonton, the capital of the Canadian province of Alberta. Debuting as an actor at age 15, Michael has enjoyed success on both the small and big screen. Fox married actress Tracy Pollan in 1988, and together the couple have four children: Sam Michael, twins Aquinnah Kathleen and Schuyler Frances, and Esmé Annabelle.
Fox started displaying symptoms of early-onset Parkinson’s in 1990, although he was not properly diagnosed until the next year. In 1998, he decided to go public with his condition, and since then he has been a strong advocate of Parkinson’s research. His foundation, The Michael J. Fox Foundation, was created to help advance every promising research path to curing Parkinson’s, through embryonic stem cell studies.
Fox wholeheartedly believes that if there is a concentrated effort from the Parkinson’s community, and (most importantly) the general public, researchers can pinpoint the cause of Parkinson’s and uncover a cure within our lifetime.
