It started out as a challenge, more of a joke. Let's just BIKE through Southeast Asia. And somehow, it's turned into a real event. That's happening in April. To us.
We are two 30-something year old women who love to travel. Upon recent visits to Thailand, India and China, the horrors that face children in these parts of the world became dreadfully evident. Child sex tourism and trafficking are rampant abuses all over Asia and the problem needs to be brought to light and eradicated.
As human beings, it was not only painful to witness these crimes, but as Westerners, we were ashamed that it was our fellow countrymen who appeared to be the primary perpetrators of these atrocities. According to ECPAT, about 25% of the sex tourists who abuse children while traveling abroad are from North America. At first we felt only outrage and helplessness, but we were determined to find a way that we could help contribute to the solution.
On April 15th we are leaving on a 3 month bicycle ride through Southeast Asia to raise money for ECPAT International, a global network of organizations and individuals working together for the elimination of child prostitution, child pornography and the trafficking of children for sexual purposes (http://www.ecpat.net/EI/index.asp). In addition to the funds we will raise, we aim to raise awareness about the sexual exploitation of children in Asia and around the world.
We know that touring Southeast Asia via bike will present fantastic opportunities and incredible challenges, which is exactly why we're so excited about the prospect. Biking brings happiness and freedom to our lives in a way that nothing else does and we hope that by raising money for ECPAT International we can contribute, even in a small way, to bringing some kind of happiness and freedom to children in need.
As ECPAT International could not help us provide a tax deductible donation system, we are funneling our donations to ECPAT International through ECPAT USA. ECPAT USA is excited about our ride and is anxious to help us get our money to ECPAT International.
You can also make donations by check. Checks should be made out to ECPAT and mailed to:
Danielle Giannone
20 Medford Street
Chelsea, MA 02150
USA
NOTE: The money you donate to ECPAT here on the Firstgiving site goes directly to ECPAT. We will not be using ANY of the money donated here to fund our ride. If you are feeling extra generous, you can make a donation to us, using paypal, on our blog (
http://wecycleasia.blogspot.com/). Only those donations will be used to buy gear and pay for our travel expenses.
Thanks in advance!