Kick-off day – students of ‘Sint Ursula Fietst’ kick off their fundraiser for Cycling out of Poverty

The Sint Ursula student-ambassadors, who are going to visit Uganda and to see with their own eyes and experience firsthand how a bicycle makes a difference in Africa, have been preparing for a while now. But today the 41 Sint Ursula cyclists who are going to cycle from Lier, Belgium to the summit of Alpes d’Huez have kicked off. A kick-off day to get to learn the reason why we are going to raise funds for bicycles for students in East-Africa.

In the morning, the Sint Ursula cyclists learned about the inequality in this world during a game supervised by the Sint-Ursula ambassadors. To be in the shoes of different characters, having to feel to have or have no access to a bicycle, looking for social institutions in Lier, answering knowledge questions, earned points by giving applause for people using public transport, … The game and role play’s aim was to create awareness about the Sustainable Development Goals (the successors of the Millennium Development Goals) and how we can contribute to fulfilling these goals. The students were made aware of the social inequality in this world and triggered to see opportunities to improve this situation and, moreover, how the bicycle delivers on the Sustainable Development Goals.

In the afternoon the programme was filled with several workshops. Workshops on bicycle training and cycling ergonomics. How do you get through the winter and stay active? What is good nutrition for exercise and training and what should you do with the first wounds? What size of sportswear do you have? How do you become a member of our group on Strava where you can already find all training courses? What about the sustainable development goals in Uganda? And how do you, as a group, take on the challenge to raise money for your peer-students in Uganda? Each group already got to know their mentor (additional supervising teachers) and brainstrormed about fundraising ideas. It looks very promising!

It is a magnificent gang of motivated students! It is nice to see young people getting active for themselves and for others, to feel and see a high level of energy-flow, open-mindedness and out-of-the-box thinking and to notice new friendships grow.

We have kicked off! And how!!