Next week, June 20th, Cranmore will be hosting CAUSE Canada Cup mountain bike race. For the past two years, the race has been famously known as Ziggy Gnarly. This year, Cranmore and Rundle Mountain Cycling Club have partnered with CAUSE CANADA.
CAUSE CANADA is an International Relief and Development Organization which strives to empower impoverished communities and individuals around the world. KONA has partnered with CAUSE to supply Western Africa relief workers with Kona Africa Bikes that enable them to reach more remote areas.
The mountain bike event will feature the CAUSE celebrity KONA Africa bike race where celebrities will race with Kona Africa Bikes on an eight kilometer track. All the proceeds from the event will go to public health teaching and HIV/AIDS prevention work in West Africa.
On the morning of June 10, Kona Bike’s Michelle Gault spoke with CBC radiohost Rick Cluff on the Early Edition about the Kona BikeTown Africa program andAfricaBike. The short segment highlights the history behind the program, how the Kona AfricaBikes assist home healthcare workers in sub-Saharan Africa and how you can help the program through numerous donation options.
LISTEN HERE.
Michael Tapogna (aka “Mikestro”) and Paul A. Tapogna (aka “BigToe”) are the: FRATELLI TAPOGNA CYCLING CLUB.
On Sunday May 17, the brothers rode 145 miles from Penn Station, NYC to Montauk – the eastern tip of Long Island, NY.
“It was all in the rain … it was tough but it was worth it” says Paul.
Michael and Paul were inspired by Kona’s AfricaBike program and decided to do this ride to raise funds for Kona Basic Needs and the BikeTown Africa program. They collected over $2,000 which will provide 20 AfricaBikes to home healthcare workers.
Congratulations from Kona to Michael and Paul, job well done dudes.
In Delft, Capetown, the MaAfrika Tikkun healthcare workers can be seen cruising the streets between shacks and houses, dressing wounds and caring for the ill. The South African government pays home-based carers such as the MaAfrika to visit eight patients a day. Unfortunately, two years ago, the carers were going about their work by foot and could only visit around five people a day.
Last year, 108 MaAfrika Healthcare workers received Kona AfricaBikes which have since enabled them to do their work a little better. The carers now see 8-12 people a day, spend more time with the patients and respond to emergencies more efficiently. Also, according to Mobility Magazine, cycling is four times faster than walking. It takes as much effort to walk at 4kan hour as it does to ride 16k an hour. So, in a day of 16k of travel, a bicycle saves about three hours or more.
One of the recipients, Esmerelda Piers says, “When someone thanks me for a job well done, I know why I am doing this. And the bicycle helps me do it better.”
