From Africa To The Paralympics On A Bamboo Bicycle

From Africa To The Paralympics On A Bamboo Bicycle

Sport2build has launched its Africa-Europe ride by bamboo bicycle with a special departure event on Friday 15th June 2012 at 9:00. The event took place in Chongwe at the Royal Palace of her Highness Senior Chieftness Nkomesha Mukamambo II.

The ride between Lusaka and London will be cycled on a special custom-made bicycle made in bamboo by an experienced team in Zambia from Zambikes. The expedition, led by Matteo Sametti, an experienced sportsman and co-founder of Sport2build, will reach the British capital for the Paralympic Games, a symbolic arrival which aims to highlight the fundamental role of sport in development and social change and to promote inclusion and non-discrimination. The ride will raise funds for the establishment of an innovative school in the chiefdom of her Royal Highness Senior Chieftness Nkomesha Mukamambo II in Zambia which will associate lessons in the classrooms with sport, art, dance and manual activities to ensure the holistic development of children. The school will target, mainly butnot exclusively, those children who are left behind by the formal school system: children with special needs and with learning difficulties enabling them to develop, learn, and grow in a safe, healthy and secure environment as well as all those children who drop out of school for any social and family circumstances. Sport has a fundamental role in the development of children and youth and as recognized by the United Nations Inter-Agency Taskforce on Sport for Development and Peace and the very Secretary General, Mr Ban Ki Moon on his visit to Zambia, it is a fundamental tool for social development.

Sport2build is a recent independent, apolitical, Italian organization, born from the desire to offer to all children and youths who find themselves in situations of emergency, poverty and social degradation, an effective tool to enable their psycho-social and physical development.

Its aim is to empower unprivileged children and youth using sport as a tool for social and behavior change.

In 2010 Matteo and Serena, the two co-funders, decided it was time to give a formal structure to their years long commitment in organizing sport activities in the neighbor rural areas of Kafue, Zambia, and Sport2build Onlus was born with a specific vision and methodology of addressing children holistically through sport.

The ride has the support of the Italian Embassy in Lusaka, the newly appointed Ambassador his Excellency Piermario Daccò will cycle the first kilometers with Matteo Sametti and a team from Zambikes to support the ride. From Chongwe, Matteo will proceed to Malawi, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt where he will get a ferry to reach Europe.

Sport2Build press_release_the_departure.pdf

ENDS

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