The Long Road Home

Funds raised from the Long Road Home ride will be used to:

(i) build sports centre facilities at a refuge for street children in Cambodia, and
(ii) set up recreation and health initiatives in earthquake-affected areas in Pakistan.

The projects are specific, so donors know exactly what will happen with their money. They were picked with the help of Reuters Foundation, and a Hong Kong-based hedge fund, ADM Capital.

Firstly, working with Reuters Foundation, I decided to focus on areas of ‘forgotten’ emergencies – both Cambodia and Pakistan areas are on Reuters AlertNet list, but have largely dropped our of global headlines. We also decided that, extending the sports theme of the cycle ride, we would focus on projects that use sport as means of helping rebuild communities, focusing on children, especially girls.

Secondly, ADM helped to identify the specific projects the money will go to. Both of the projects are additions to existing programmes that have been remarkably successful in their achievements so far. ADM Capital’s own Foundation is already active in Cambodia.

The Pakistan Project

This project is to help earthquake victims in Pakistan.
The project is to set up recreation facilities at relief sites in Balakot, Mensehra and other sites in Pakistan, for 5,000-10,000 children from the communities most affected by the earthquake, and train 50 teachers to run sports and recreation programmes. The facilities would include playgrounds, simple sport fields, as well as water tanks etc. We are aiming to raise US$100,000 for this.

Why do these children need help?

The October 05 earthquake, which killed 80,000 people, also destroyed schools and community facilities destroyed. With aid from numerous sources, villagers are clearing rubble from over hundreds of demolished and damaged school sites, and equipment such as tents is being provided. UNICEF has established over 910 tent schools outside relief settlements serving more than 144,000 students. However, communities and families are struggling to re-establish everyday life.

What difference will our project make?

The sports facilities will help normalize life for the impacted children, through sport and play activities. Sport and recreation can be used to help re-build and enrich community life, developing a wide range of activities for children, and a local coach base.
The implementation will be done by Right To Play (www.righttoplay.com), an international humanitarian organisation that uses sport and play as a tool for the development of children and youth in the most disadvantaged areas of the world. RTP works alongside partners such as UNICEF, and is implementing projects in 40 countries worldwide. The full Pakistan project will actually cost US$280k USD. In this project we are aiming to raise US$100k USD. RTP is finding another donor to fund the rest. We’ll keep you update on that thanks to help of Julia Fuller at Reuters Foundation and Johann Koss, president of RTP. We set the US$100k target because we think that’s maybe what we can achieve. Of course, if we can manage to raise the extra US$180k for RTP, then so much the better.

What can you do to get involved?

If you want to give money to help build the facilities in Pakistan, then you can donate into a special account for this project set up by Right To Play.

Work on the ground could start by end of this year, if our fundraising is successful.

The Cambodia project

This project is to help street children in Sihanoukville, Cambodia.
With US$40,000, sports centre facilities can be built close to the M’Lop Tapang children’s refuge in Sihanoukville Cambodia, and local people can be trained to run sports and health activities for 5000 children from the whole region. M’Lop Tapang is a permanent project in Sihanoukville, which provides shelter, food, medical care and education for 500 street-living and street-working children. (See www.mloptapang.org).

Why do these children need help?

Thirty years of genocide and civil war have left Cambodian families and communities broken. Community infrastructure is still almost entirely lacking. Public schooling is only for 2.5 hours per day, and there are almost no public recreation spaces or facilities for children, who on the streets, are exposed to drugs, gangs and trafficking. Extreme poverty pushes many girls into prostitution. Sihanoukville has become the main destination for homeless children in southern Cambodia.

What difference will our project make?

During the rainy season (about six months of the year) street and slum children have no place to play. The sports centre will help provide constructive activities not only for children at the M’Lop Tapang centre, but also many others in the Sihanoukville slums area, providing an alternative to roaming the streets, glue-sniffing etc. The sports centre would be available to all members of the community, so that for the first time ordinary people in Sihanoukville have a covered place to go and play the sports they love such as volleyball.

What can you do to get involved?

If you want to give money to help build the sports centre in Sihanoukville, then you can donate into a special account set up by International Childcare Trust, which is one of the main supporters of M’Lop Tapang. Click here

Work on building the centre could start before the end of this year, if our fundraising is successful.

The full details of how to donate are under the ‘Donation’ tab.

And of course, I’ll say again that none of the funds raised will be used for my overland trip – I’m paying costs eg kit and accommodation, from my own pocket.