Three Montreal engineering students made the 1,400 kilometre trip from Vancouver to Drumheller late Friday evening, only just beginning the 7,500 km trek to Halifax in an effort to raise awareness of child soldiers.
“People tend to ride for health issues and rarely for humanitarian aid,” says Gazaille, who is currently studying Honours Pure and Applied Sciences at John Abbot College.
They are three members of the Zero Force Cycling team, who are riding across Canada to raise money for the Child Soldiers Initiative, an organization founded by Lieutenant-General Romeo Dallaire who has written books on the use of children as weapons. They’re goal is to raise $150,000 for the initiative, and as of Friday they were already at $18,000 since leaving Vancouver for Drumheller.
Drew Steeves said he stumbled on the initiative one day after the group had decided to use their love of cycling to influence something.
“We want to engage Canadian youth to influence a problem, make change from Canada because we have the ability to,” said Steeves at Jan and Bob Richardson’s home on Saturday morning, who housed the cycling team on their brief stay in Drumheller.
“Every donation goes to child soldiers. We’re funding our own trip,” said Steeves.
They headed off to Youngstown after their overnight stay in Drumheller, using Jan Richardson’s church connections to summon support on the beginning of their grueling trek across the flat prairies.
So far, the Zero Force Cycling team has been receiving a lot of response from both media and people who attended their send off rally in Vancouver and an RCMP send-off in Calgary.
“It’s something new that people don’t know about yet. Everyone rides for cancer,” says Steeves.
Torrens likes to look at Terry Fox for inspiration as they push through the bike trek as it is starting to look tougher and tougher.
“Comparing us to him is a big jump, but we like to look to him for inspiration.”
The cycling team hopes to find even greater support as they get closer to home as they head east, as they plan to reach Halifax by August 15.
