Can you tell us about your project? 

Cycle for Water is an NGO that was set up in 2013 with the aim of taking action and raising awareness to improve access to water and public hygiene services. Each edition involves organising a humanitarian and sporting expedition with access to water as its central theme. We are currently on the project’s third edition. 

Key figures:

• 25,000 km by bike, leaving from New Zealand and returning to France. This is the awareness-raising and adventure side of things, it’s about rallying people in support of our cause. 
• 4 humanitarian missions in Asia. We work in Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia. We have built up four partnerships with NGOs on the ground, together working on missions to improve access to water for locals. That can range from building water filters or pipelines to the construction of toilets in schools for example, or hand-washing stations. 
• 12,000 people have benefited from our initiatives. This is the impact that we have achieved with our NGO partners, and we consider the project a success if we manage to reach that number. Our ambition is to push the project even further than in previous editions.  

Why did you get involved in voluntary work at the end of your studies?

 César, my teammate in this adventure, and I have for years had a strong desire to dedicate our time to a humanitarian cause and achieve something together. When he heard about Cycle for Water, he loved the idea and called me up. The end of my studies was the perfect time to take on this project, and it was our first experience together. Some of us have small jobs on the side, perhaps giving lessons or doing other activities to cater for our needs, but otherwise the work is purely voluntary, and at the moment we are trying to raise funds. 

The project is run by young people from one year to the next. After this edition, we’ll be handing the baton over to a new team for the 4^th edition! 

Was improving access to water an important cause for you?

Water is an issue that César and I came face-to-face with up close. We both had the opportunity to live in Asia. Last year I was in Thailand for my dual degree programme split between EDHEC and AIT Bangkok. I travelled to very isolated areas, in particular near the Myanmar border, where there was no access to drinking water and we saw children drinking stagnant water from ponds. There is a lot of disease circulating in those areas and huge infant mortality rates. It had a really big impact on César and me. In France we all have taps, showers, toilets and as much drinking water as we want at home. There they have nothing. Except for rainwater when they manage to harvest it. So we felt it was an issue we wanted to invest in, to raise awareness and take concrete action. 

Do you get the sense that the pandemic has once again made the importance of water a major concern?

People became aware that it’s impossible to stop a virus without public hygiene services, without being able to wash your hands. Hand-washing stations are a key resource in reducing the spread of viruses in certain areas. We will be running such a project with our partner Clear Cambodia, where we will be working in schools, initially building latrines and then hand-washing stations. It’s a major objective because these are areas in which many different diseases spread easily. 

The pandemic also heightened the need for urgent intervention in certain areas. An example is an isolated region in Indonesia known as Asmat, near Papua New Guinea, where we will be running operations. It’s extremely difficult to transport resources there as there is a lot of swampland and no roads. And with the coronavirus, lockdowns, logistical restrictions and businesses limiting their available means, projects were put on hold and sometimes cancelled. One of the zones where we work was identified by the Indonesian government as a “sanitary emergency and extraordinary zone”. Using terms like that in Indonesia is an indication of how worrying the situation is. They have suffered many delays in their intervention, they were supposed to deliver rainwater collection units but were unable to. The result is infant mortality rates on the rise and diseases spreading more and more easily. 

How did you select which projects to work on? 

That’s a very interesting aspect of the project. From the outset we decided we would necessarily be working in collaboration with NGOs since we don’t have the expertise, we are not able to build water filters, we don’t know how to install a pipeline or build toilets. The NGOs have the experience, the means and the capacity to monitor progress and achieve results, those are really the key criteria.

So we conducted an in-depth study of the existing NGOs in Asia, contacted many of them and ended up choosing four. One that had already collaborated with Cycle for Water in its second edition and three others that we found in other countries. We realised, over the course of our discussions with them and studying their financial reports and websites, that they had significant resources and already collaborated with local stakeholders and the local authorities. They had a strong presence in various layers of society and had the resources to monitor a project. Monitoring is a very important criterion as we won’t invest in a project that can’t be monitored or be sustainable. 

And the help you offer the NGOs involves labour as well as the financial dimension?

Exactly. The idea is for our collaboration to run over several stages. First we look for sponsors, private partners, and once we have the funding we send them the money and they can get started ahead of our arrival. We join them on the ground to launch the operational deployment together. We stay for a month each time, in all four places where we are working, which allows us to get a feel for the reality on the ground and meet people in situ. We do some filming to be released at the end of the project to have a documented series of our adventure, not only the cycling part but above all the humanitarian dimension. It’s also important for our partners who fund us to have images from the project site and to be linked to those images. It’s a tangible involvement for them. 

And you’re currently looking for funds to finance these NGOs?

That’s right. We’ve developed the whole project, all the administrative side of things, as well as the journey. Now we’re 100% focused on fundraising. We’ve already raised €20,000 and are continuing to look for more. We reach out to our network and try to attract major firms that might be interested in our approach. We organise many events, like the Cycle for Water Challenge, which will take place in September. We plan a big excursion by bike that will start in Cherbourg and we invite all our partners, in particular town hall authorities, partner companies, schools, etc. We expect to see reports in the local and national press. The event can serve as a team-building initiative for companies, the idea being that participants head out together and can discuss the theme of access to water. We all meet up at the Mont Saint-Michel to chat and share a meal together. This is the kind of event we try to propose to companies and our other partners to get them interested and secure their commitment. 

What goal are you trying to achieve?

We’ve set two marks: if we raise €70,000, we’ll head off because that will cover our expedition costs, and once we’ve reached €120,000, we’ll be able to fund all of the humanitarian projects we’ve developed.

• Pour support the 3rd edition of Cycle for Water : https://globedreamers.com/crowdfunding/voyage/cycle-for-water