Two students. One dream. Nono and Max are undertaking 15.000 km cycling tour from Berlin to Bejing to build a school in Guatemala. Read their inspiring story here! 🚲
“We are two recent university graduates from Germany and are currently on our bicycle trip from Berlin to Beijing. We never did any bike touring before and there is a reason why we are doing this adventure of a lifetime: It is our mission to create digital awareness for educational problems by doing something extremely challenging. We aim to build a school in Guatemala as well as to enable 400 children an entire year of education with our project Biking Borders. For us, Biking Borders is about doing exceptional things that are entirely out of our comfort zone and have a positive impact on the lives of others. The name captures the story that two “usually non-bikers” are overcoming geographic and mental borders by using nothing but a bicycle. It also entails the fact that education should not be restricted or limited by the borders we are living in.”
“Both of us have lived in developing countries in Asia or Central America for a longer period of time. During this time, we have worked for local aid organizations and volunteered with children while studying for our exchange semester. These experiences and time abroad made us realize the fortunate position we are in. The gratefulness for the privilege of receiving a proper education, which we have not been aware of before, gave us the urge to do something that has a positive impact on the life of less fortunate children as soon as we will finish university ourselves. Basically, our own situation of being students made us chose education as a cause to support. The idea to do an extreme bicycle trip and use social media to create the required awareness came us when watching a National Geographic Documentary. In this documentary, a man went by bike from Oregon to South America and talked about the beauty but also the difficulties such a journey entails – even for a proven cyclist. We came up with the idea to do something similar but without any cycling experience and with a more adventurous route in order to create awareness for educational problems. By doing more research, we have stumbled upon shocking numbers such as 250 million children who lack basic reading and math skills or 72 children of a primary age who have never even stepped into a classroom. This gave us the final motivation to go through with the idea of building a school by biking borders.”
“Recently we have reached Croatia and thus, completed the first 1.500km out of the total 15.000km. Our experiences so far are incredible, and we are amazed by the hospitality we have received from total strangers in countries such as Czech Republic, Austria, Slovenia and Croatia. Also, almost 12.000€ in donations have been contributed to our fundraising campaign from all over the world. Throughout our first 4 weeks on the road, almost 200 people donated, and we have had experiences that will stay with us for our entire life: we have been face to face with a wolf, we crossed the breathtaking mountains in Austria and were almost blown off a cliff from the Bora winds in Croatia. What are we taking from being one month constantly on a bicycle for a good cause? Cycling is tough! Every kilogram matters! People support you in all situations when you authentically fight for a good cause! This will most likely be the adventure of our lifetime…”
Want to follow Nono and Max on their cycling journey? 🚲
Check Biking Borders Instagram Channel or their videos on Youtube here.
If you want to support Biking Borders, you can donate here. 💙
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