Mangalore, September 25: Make a Difference (MAD), a youth volunteer network that works with underprivileged children completed 'Tour de difference' wherein volunteers cycled to 12 Indian cities, and covered 4,240 kilometers in the months of August and September and were able to raise a sum of Rs 3.60 lakh towards the purchase of Cambridge syllabus textbooks for 300 underprivileged children in Mangalore.
Sharing the experience, Raichand, a final year MBBS student from KMC Mangalore, said: “I am very excited having completed a huge task.”
Sebastian Thele from Germany said the tour was an amazing experience. “I did not have such an experience in my life.” While Sudhith from Cohin who joined the team from Cochin said it was an awesome experience. “We met people who were curious to know what MAD is all about,” he said.
Speaking about the condition of the road, both Raichand and Sebastian said the roads were excellent till Kerala. “However, the roads are in deplorable condition in Kerala. There were few stretches where one had to search for the existence of the road.”
MAD Mangalore chapter President Greeshma Rai said that the main objective of the expedition was to raise Rs 100 for every kilometre the cyclists cover, and thereby meet the costs incurred by the Mangalore chapter of MAD on Cambridge syllabus textbooks for the 300 children under its wings and to also promote and stress the importance of education to the future of the country.
A rally was organised to welcome Tour de Difference back to Mangalore. The rally concluded at Mangalore Press Club on Saturday. They cycled to 12 cities—Mangalore, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Viojayawada, Chennai, Vellore, Bangalore, Mysore, Coimbatore, Thiruvananthapuram and Cochin.
MAD in Mangalore has been instrumental in four centres namely Balika Ashram in Kankanady, Aloysius Boys Homes, Ullal, Prajna Group of Institutions at Marnamikatta and CARDTS, Nantoor.
Programmes
She said the riders and the MAD volunteers will be a part of the final stage of the 'design for change,' an international competition, where children will be implementing solutions to tackle the various problems affecting their lives. There will be a photo exhibition of the 'tour's' travels put up at City Centre mall throughout the weekend.
On Sunday, the riders and volunteers will paint and renovate the CARDTS Centre. To celebrate the end of TdD, different bands from across the city will compete in the 'The Big Band theory' at Mangalore Ladies Club at Light House Hill road on Sunday at 4.30 pm, she added.
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