Craig's London to Paris Challenge

Hi All,

July 16-21, 2013, some friends and I will be riding approximately 400km from London to Paris, then riding approx another 400km July 24-28 through Switzerland  to help raise funds for specific projects for ADRA.

So why are we interested in putting this ride together?

With it being on the other side of the world it won’t be easy, or cheap. Besides it being a great experience, the key motivation behind the ride is to raise funds (hopefully $150,000 as a group) to support more projects addressing the issues of albino safety in Tanzania. Since establishing the SAFE project (Albino initiative) almost two years ago, ADRA have received multiple requests from schools in Tanzania with a high population of albinos for our support.

Their most common need is to build a wall (about 12-14 foot high and 800 metres long) to keep the albino hunters out of the school. With the price of an albino (full body) fetching sums as high as $75,000, albino school children are at a high risk. These schools have also requested a covered play area as because of their sensitive skin albino children are not able to play with the other kids – not in the hot African sun. So far we have received requests from three separate schools and while we would love to support them, we are limited by our finances. We have already invested $750,000 into our SAFE project in Tanzania and with development programs in 16 other countries, it is hard to justify more work in Tanzania without cutting funds to other countries.  In saying this the need is huge and if we can find another way of funding these activities (the London to Paris ride) then we should support these schools.

I have created a facebook page updating my training, what I've been up to around it, kind of like a blog of the upcoming trip. If you would like to track my progress, plus score a chance to win a few fundraising giveways - please follow the link, like and share my page.

https://www.facebook.com/CraigsLondonParisSwitzerlandTour

Essentially, I need to raise a minimum of $6,000, however would really like to hit $10,000.


Attached below is a picture of the wall we want to build, as well as some of the children we want to support. To learn more about albino’s and the issue of safety you may want to watch the following videos, the first is from ADRA Tanzania (produced before ADRA Australia commenced their major project) and the second one was produced by the UN.