UEnd Blog

For the past four months, Carla White has been riding her heart out, raising money to bring awareness to Energy Poverty in Africa, and provide solar lanterns to impoverished communities across the continent.

Carla’s been keeping a blog of her adventure along the way. Today, she’s at the finish line. And we’re almost at our fundraising goal:

Goal: $25,000

Remaining: $1,462

Facts about Carla’s Ride to End Energy Poverty:

1 bungee jump

1 shoulder separation

1 wind turbine

10 solar lanterns

10 countries

75 cyclists

120 total days

653 supporters in Canada

5,800 lives impacted

11,718 km’s ridden

$23,538 raised so far ($1,462 still needed)

What you can do:

1) Give $5 to this project http://www.uend.org/dt/projects/154

2) Share this with your friends

3) Tweet this and share on Facebook

4) Smile! Because you helped make this happen

(all photos from Carla White)

Carla White is doing such a great job cycling from Cairo to Cape Town in the Tour d’Afrique in her bike to end energy poverty in Africa, encountering 100+KM/day rides, extreme heat, sleeping in tents, being whipped by nasty children with sticks, and a daily 5am wake up call. Yikes! (it’s not ALL that bad, read her blog to hear about her other amazing stories)

BUT, she’s also raising money to give 10 solar lanterns to needy schools, orphanages and on-the-ground organizations.

Just the other day we got a glimpse of boxed up solar lanterns ready to ship to Africa. Hopefully they’ll get there safely!

Oh and the latest funding numbers for this project is $3,719 still to go! Click here to see the project page»

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Oh Carla… so happy!

Follow Carla’s adventures as she bikes Africa to End Energy Poverty: www.carlabikesafrica.com

This is the first in the series of Water and Sanitation and how it relates to helping to end poverty.
To that end, I have included links to groups that work in this area so that you can see the breadth of work that is currently being done in the community and gain an understanding as to why this work is important.

CAWST is a group base din Calgary that is an education partner-to-be of ours.
WaterAid- Ghana is a group that works in Ghana on Water Sanitation and Hygiene matters. They not one of our partners but they have good information on their site.
African Water Page- has lots of information, though not super current.
End Water Poverty is another page with good information.
I am sure there are many others but this is a starter look at the matter.
Happy web browsing.

This is the last of the 14 video clips by Jay from Uganda.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMlWsHfqtqw[/youtube]

This one reflects on the entire trip and inspiration gathered from the people he met.

After a 7.5 hour flight from the London Heathrow airport, Jay and I arrived in Addis Ababa at 7:30am yesterday morning. September 12th is New Year’s Day in Ethiopia, although because it was our first day here it was hard to know how different the atmosphere was compared to the regular pace of this city. Chances are things are a little slower than usual.

It is hard to know what to describe first, because there is so much to observe - to attempt to absorb. Finding words - let alone organize thoughts - is difficult. This is my first experience in the developing world, so I feel lucky to have Jay as a travel companion - i try and mimic his attitude and actions as much as possible. As a foreigner, experience is clearly a valuable resource to have when navigating in this part of the world.

We took a cab from the airport and got our first glimpse of Addis Ababa. It is a collage of colour, texture, people, smells, new, old and abandoned buildings, rough patchy shacks, vendors, tidy businesses, interesting cafes, bakeries, and coffee shops. The streets are bustling with activity - vendors selling shoes, clothes, candy, gum, jewelry, sunglasses, vegetables, toilet paper…all sorts of things. Walking in a straight line and not tripping over the sidewalk has proved difficult for me, since there is so much around to take in. The traffic is chaotic, and although the local pedestrian traffic seem at ease meandering through the speeding cabs and buses, the vehicles themselves don’t slow at all, not for anything or anybody. Occasionally, a thoughtful driver will give a quick warning honk before blasting through a street crowded full of people, but otherwise, it’s up to you not to get run over by a bus.

Many people are friendly and say hello, and many openly ask for handouts. More than once, a young boy fell into step with us, trying to engage in polite conversation, asking for money, promoting a business or ‘club’, or maybe offering their service as a tour guide. Jay had warned me about this before - so I did my best to follow his example and ignore much of it. Without a doubt, the most heart-wrenching experience was to walk away from all the small children who beg for money, reach for your hand, grab you leg, peering up at you, ‘please..’….walking away from these beautiful little faces is very difficult, but necessary. There was a lump in my throat more than once.

We are staying at the Taitu Hotel - Ethiopia’s self-proclaimed “oldest and still best” Hotel. It was built in 1898, and although it is simple in form and has clearly never benefited from any major upgrades, it’s clean and run by a very accommodating staff. Our room is a tiny space with orange walls, a high ceiling and a fantastic window that opens into a little alley lit by sun and full of flowers. The air is cool and sweet, which proved a perfect atmosphere to catch up on sleep. After getting rest and getting over the initial shock of such a new environment, we are now ready to start meeting with some of the potential partner organizations that are doing work here in Ethiopia. Today we are hoping to meet with Cango Ethiopia, a conglomerate of 14 Canadian NGOs doing community development projects. it should be very exciting.