Coronavirus
UK based Indian cycling group raises funds for covid-19 relief in India
Named Ride 2 Breathe, this 15 member group cycled a total of 123 kilometers from London to Brighton and raised £9,000.
Ride 2 Breathe (Source: Ahmedabad Mirror.)
The second wave of coronavirus has hit India pretty badly. The country is currently acute shortage of oxygen concentrators, hospital beds and live-saving drugs whilst registering more than 3 lakh cases and thousands of deaths every day since almost a month.
While the citizens of India gasps for survival, various countries and institutions have poured in with financial and medical aids to help the country. Amongst the many such is a small Indian cyclng group from the United Kingdom.
Named Ride 2 Breathe, this 15 member group cycled a total of 123 kilometers from London to Brighton and raised a £9,000, reported the Ahmedabad Mirror.
The initiative was started by an artist Jignesh Patel – who lost his mother-in-law to the virus in Ahmedabad, along with his friend Nimit Shishodiya.
Patel was in no means a cyclist but, when his friend Shishodiya suggested the idea that they cycle to raise funds for India, he somehow agreed. Soon the initiative spread through the word of mouth and 13 more Indian origin cyclists joined them in the noble cause.
The group set-up a crowd-funding page and set off from London to Brighton on Sunday. They started off at 7 in the morning and reached the destination at around 10:30pm, raising £9,000 in their crowd-funding page along the way.
What surprised the group most was that more than half of the funds they raised came via Britishers. The group has since bought oxygen concentrators from the money raised and have donated it to cities like Kutch, Bangalore, Valsad and Pune. They are expected to donate the remaining amount via some prominent NGOs to help the needy.
