Europe's largest esports campus H20 from Purmerend challenges pupils and students during the lockdown to participate in an online challenge to recreate the facades of Dutch hospitals in Minecraft. The aim of the action is to let young people end this year with a positive activity and at the same time support charities and care workers of the hospitals. 50% of the proceeds will go to charities and 50% to the care workers in the hospitals that will be reconstructed. Before the new year begins, the facades of all hospitals in the Netherlands must be recreated in Minecraft on an actual scale. Between Wednesday 23 and Thursday 31 December, an army of young volunteers (children, pupils, students, etc.) will take on this challenge.
Press conference
We cordially invite you to watch the presentation of this challenge at the now familiar "corona moment" Tuesday evening (Dec. 22) at 7 p.m. via a live link. For questions and registration please send a message to pers@h20.gg. If you would like an interview with one of the founders of this challenge, you can also request that via this email address. More information about the challenge can be found at minecrafthospitalheroes.nl
Minecraft hospital heroes
The campaign, appropriately named Minecraft Hospital Heroes, came about after the H20 Esports Campus had to close its doors for the third time this year last week.
Campus Founder Dirk Tuip: "Like many entrepreneurs, we were surprised and disappointed by the new lockdown last week. Hundreds of children were going to enjoy activities with us during the Christmas holidays on the cutting edge of healthy gaming, hybrid (e)sports and creative tech. That would have been a nice ending to a crazy year."
Tuip continued: "Now that these activities cannot continue, we desperately wanted to do something for the children sitting at home and at the same time do something against the negative, powerless and sometimes desperate feeling that Corona causes."
With the addition of the sponsorship action, a number of charities can now be supported. Potential sponsors can more or less adopt the online hospitals. Each hospital for which enough sponsorship comes in will be recreated during the challenge." More information can be found at minecrafthospitalheroes.com
Watching via live stream
H20 Co-Founder Matthijs Vink explains, "By rebuilding the hospitals, we can offer students a unique and educational challenge through which they can say after the Christmas vacations that they have built a real hospital to scale together with others, as well as show their parents how gaming can contribute to skills such as creativity, collaboration and communication and of course tech. With this action we also want to thank all healthcare workers of the different hospitals for their efforts during the Corona crisis. Those who do not help build can watch the construction via a live stream on minecrafthospitalheroes.com. "We hope a lot of people get to see the action. The year 2020 will never be forgotten by a lot of people , especially because of Corona and the impact on the direct and indirect victims."
One of the best Minecraft builders in the world
The building project is led by 17-year-old Thomas Bosch. He was the architect of Greenfield, one of the largest cities ever built in Minecraft. Thomas built the city together with dozens of regular builders and hundreds of volunteers. The whole project took almost 10 years and thousands of man hours. During this challenge, Thomas is leading the Minecraft Hospital Heroes construction team via Discord, an online platform for gaming, chatting and talking.
Proceeds to charities and hospitals
Half of the proceeds go to the staff associations of the hospitals built. The other half of the proceeds from this campaign will go to a number of charities that help get children severely affected by Corona moving. These include Stichting Het Vergeten Kind, the Cruyff Foundation, and Kanjer Wens Nederland, which help wishes of children with a serious illness or chronic condition to have a great day. In total, the challenge supports 6 charities. More information can be found at minecrafthospitalheroes.nl
Call for Minecraft builders: help out and build your local hospital
H20 is also still looking for experienced Minecraft builders, to help build Minecraft Hospital Heroes, the 2020 challenge, this vacation season! They can sign up at minecrafthospitalheroes.co.uk. It is estimated that dozens of volunteers are needed. As much as possible, we want to pair the builders with hospitals from their own region or locality.