UK cyclists’ Pedal with a Purpose charity ride expects to raise K30m to support education projects in Malawi
Think Malawi, the charity that has embarked on an epic 500-mile (790km) cycling adventure from London to Glasgow — dubbed Pedal with a Purpose — is expecting to raise about K30 million (£25,000) towards supporting grassroots education initiatives in Malawi.
Three member from Peckham Cycle Club — Steve McInerny, 47 from Herne; Alastair Boon, 26, from Brixton, Alex Bascetta, 29, from Peckham started off on Saturday from London’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and are due to cross the finish line on Thursday at the UCI Cycling World Championships in Glasgow.
McInerny, founder and trustee of Think Malawi, said on the initiative’s website “that their goal is to raise £25,000, “which will make a significant impact on the educational lives of Malawian children”.
The initiative has already raised over K5 million (£4,000) and the riders hope to increase this during the course of their trip — and thus asks wellwishers to donate through their website https://www.
The six-day adventure is passing through London, Essex, Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire, East and North Yorkshire, County Durham, Northumberland, Cumbria, Dumfriesshire and Lanarkshire.
The grassroots education initiatives that range from making reusable sanitary pads, enabling girls to stay in school, building desks to innovative remote learning projects as well as Ladder to Learning literacy project.
“Since young people under 25 years make up 60% of the population on the African continent, investing in Malawian youth development and empowerment is crucial to the future of the country,” they said.
As solidarity, they were seeing off at View Tube Café in London by Malawi High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, His Excellency, Dr Thomas Bisika wished the four “the best of luck on their ambitious cycle ride”.
“I’m very happy that through this project, so many Malawians based in the UK are supporting this event,” he said. “This in turn enables Think Malawi to fund education projects which are run by Malawian organisations — a virtuous circle which benefits thousands of children in Malawi.
“I hope that the British public and the Malawians in diaspora will give their support as well to this worthy endeavour,” he said.
They are expected to ride 80-110 miles per day for six days in order to reach Glasgow on August 10 to arrive in time for the conclusion of UCI Cycling World Championships which began on Thursday, August 3-13 in which, coincidentally, Malawian cyclist Macpherson Mbeya is participating in three demanding and very different cycling disciplines, including the Gran Fondo (Friday, August 4) — a distance of 100 miles through the Perthshire countryside, which entails 1,663m of ascent.
The seeds for assisting Malawi were sown after the founder and trustee, McInerny crossed through Malawi on his epic ride from Cairo to Cape Town in 2004-5 along with a team of hardy riders.
McInerny and the others stopped in Blantyre where McInerny’s mother, Kate Hauxwell was a teacher at St Andrews International High School and during the short stopover, McInerny identified a gap in girl child’s literacy — thus Think Malawi was born which was then formally registered it as a charity in UK.
The ride’s main sponsor is Billy Bilsland Cycles based in Glasgow, Scotland, who already has a strong link with Malawi as its manager, Neil Bilsland also supported Macpherson Mbeya with a loan of three top-of-the-range bikes for different disciplines in his quest to participate UCI Cycling World Championships.
Mbeya, a developing Malawian professional cyclist, is a clinical officer from Mzimba District participated in the Gran Fondo on Friday, August 4) and today he undertook a 60-mile Cross-Country Mountain Bike Marathon at Glentress in the Tweed Valley and concludes with a 14-mile time trial in Glasgow on Monday, August 7.
Mbeya’s participation has been facilitated by Scotland-Malawi Partnership, a civil society network coordinating that supports and represents people-to-people links between the two nations.
The network approached Neil Bilsland for assistance after he also generously lent out bikes to Malawian athletes to compete in the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow and a statement from Scotland-Malawi Partnership said Bilsland swiftly accepted to assist “within minutes of an e-mail to his shop.
He supported Macpherson with a 51 Cervelo Caledonia with Ultegra; a 51cm Cervelo P3 Di2 and a Genesis Mantle HT and Mbeya was quoted as saying this is the first time in his life that he had seen, let alone used such bikes.
“I never dreamed that I would get to ride a bike that’s the correct size for me,” he said. “I’ve had to modify the road bike which I use in Malawi, which is too big for me. I’m really looking forward to competing in Scotland, to meeting friends there and to representing my country.”
Organised by the Union Cycliste Internationale(UCI), this is the inaugural championships awarded to Glasgow and across Scotland that has attracted more than 2,600 athletes to win over 200 rainbow jerseys.
According to UCI’s website, the championships are set to be held every four years in the year preceding the Olympic Games, brings together various disciplines of cycling for them to be held as part of one event, including the UCI Road World Championships, UCI Mountain Bike World Championships and UCI Track Cycling World Championships.
The inaugural event, whose funding is from various local and national bodies, including the Scottish Government and UK Sport, will host 13 individual UCI World Championships, and be the biggest ever cycling event — in total, over 190 world champions will be crowned.
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