PEDALING FOR KAMDA

Itaka Escolapios proposes the solidarity campaign as a space for mutual exchange and learning, it is an opportunity to demonstrate our solidarity with the other side of the world, but also to learn.

Every day more than 600 children go to the Kamda School. Many live far from school, scattered in the jungle. That’s why the most of our students go to school on a bicycle. The two wheels are more than a toy; they become a fun tool of autonomy, sustainable, “eco-logical” and healthy.

Although our reality is very different from Kamda, it is inevitable to compare ourselves, places and people so different … And yet we have so much in common, so much to learn from each other…

Knowing Kamda shows us that going to school on a bicycle and learning to use it to get around can be a great idea. We should not dispose of a bicycle, we should claim our right to get to school and move around in one of them.

Maybe most of us walk to school, how lucky! Or by car, or bus. Why not do it using a bicycle?

We invite you to learn from Kamda, to celebrate a bicycle day, to organize a protest march, a parade. Let us demand our right to use the space that surrounds us in a different way, riding a bike “PEDALING FOR KAMDA“.

It’s about designing a small route starting in the school on a specific day, inviting all the students and the rest of the educational community to go on a bicycle, spreading the Solidarity Campaign and our commitment to solidarity, learning and sustainability.

We consider that the activity is great for primary school, secondary school and bachelors. The characteristics of the schools in which the campaign is developed are so diverse that it will require a very specific planning; here are some possibilities or recommendations to take into account:

• In some places it will be necessary to ask the families and / or authorities to travel (ask your school and find out in your town hall)
• Not everyone may have a bike; different shifts can be arranged, borrowed from a group or institution, etc.
• We can raffle a bicycle on the day of the activity.
• It is possible to organize an alternative route, inside the school, for the youngest children with bikes without pedals or tricycles of their size.
• We can decorate bicycles with posters, banners, etc.
• Maybe not all the students know or can ride a bicycle; we recommend thinking of some alternative with different types of participation for those who can’t ride a bike.
• In some places there are cycling associations or entities that promote the use of the bicycle that can help you organize the activity.
• We can decorate some of the bicycles with posters of the campaign, or use some type of car to place them; we can distribute pamphlets or information about the campaign. There are many possibilities.