The collaboration between Africa Mission - Cooperation and Development and Paola Gianotti continues. She is a friend, supporter of our Movement and great athlete. After donating 73 bikes to 73 karimojong women and supporting the profession training project for bicycle mechanics in Uganda, she starts with a new challenge.

Paola Gianotti will be engaged in a new sporting challenge: covering the stages of the Giro d'Italia, May 7 starting from Catania.

The solidarity challenge together with Africa Mission is to raise funds for 18 new bikes, one for each stage of the Giro di Paola: a stage, a bike.

Cycling is an important resource in Karamoja, not only as a means of transport essential to the independence and survival of everyone but especially for women. They are in fact responsible for the maintenance of children and the home (having a bicycle means spending less time to get water from the well and therefore spending more time with their children). It is difficult for a woman to dream of a future different from that to which she is predestined, since there is still a future linked to a marginal social role. The chances of receiving an education are still limited, especially for all those girls who grow up in a rural environment. Given the context of Karamoja, marrying a child is still one of the methods taken into account for the survival of the family unit. Although the workload and responsibilities that a karimojong woman has within her family, her social consideration is small, and her decision-making power for both economic and non-economic aspects is not very relevant. Despite these conditions, the strength and courage that some women demonstrate on a daily basis, show us their hope and their commitment to wanting to build a better future for them and their children.

They are the best representatives of what the word resilience wants to express, and for this they are the forerunners of social change in Karamoja. We have decided to reward their strong and tenacious personalities, the result of complex experiences, which have marked their future, but which have also created in them a strong awareness of the unavoidability of their commitment to their communities.

With this new project we not only want to empower the local population by guaranteeing the sustainability of the bicycle as a reliable, low-cost and eco-sustainable means of transport, but also enrich it with attention to the little ones. For this reason the funds raised will not only sponsor the donation of new bikes to resilient women in Karamoja, but we will donate 100 school kits (notebooks, pens, pencils, etc.) to the students of the Great Valley school in Kampala. A new goal that with Paola we carry forward precisely because even in a context like that of the big city there are situations of misery and illiteracy that we wish to defeat.

It is necessary to collect 10,660.00 euros to cover the costs of the entire project. How can you support us? We give you different possibilities, reminding you that every contribution, even if minimal, is important and makes the difference. Do not back down, help us and support Paola Gianotti in this new challenge too!

- € 60.00: to help cover part of the expenses for the purchase of a bicycle

- € 120.00: to donate a new bicycle

- € 85.00: for a complete school kit

- € 45.00: to contribute to the expense of a new school kit