When Henry Ford II students Alban Gjelaj, Solomon Gambone and Anne Hana were brainstorming for their community awareness project for DECA (the Distributive Education Clubs of America), they chose something unfamiliar to many. Gambone was diagnosed as a child with achalasia, a medical disease that damages the nerves in the esophagus, making it difficult to eat or drink.

Achalasia is said to affect 1 in 100,000 people, yet there is currently no cure for the disease.

Gjelaj shared that this project is extremely important and personal to him and his team.

“Soloman has never seen any group try and raise awareness for this disease, so we decided to take matters into our own hands,” Gjelaj said. “As a group, we believe that we can make a huge difference in the achalasia community.”

The trio are raising awareness in multiple ways, including outreach to community leaders, presentations to health and medical science classes, selling ‘act for achalasia’ wristbands and hosting a ‘blue out for achalasia’ basketball game on Friday, Dec. 20.

“Although achalasia is not a deadly and cruel disease like many, we want to highlight how people every single day go through so many different struggles and to bring light to it,” said Gjelaj.

The group will present their project in March of 2025 at the Michigan DECA State Career Development Conference.