The Freight Transport Association is organising a 14-day cycle ride around the UK in June to raise vital funds and awareness for international UK development charity, Transaid’s Professional Driver Training Project, which is helping to save lives on Africa’s roads. 

 

The marathon challenge is being led by FTA President Stewart Oades, who will be cycling around the UK, accompanied through each FTA region by a local team.

 

The FTA Cycle Challenge will start and end at the FTA headquarters in Tunbridge Wells, travelling through each region to cover a total of around 750 miles in two weeks, averaging just over 50 miles a day.  The Northern Ireland region’s leg of the event will take place on the seventh day of the relay, Monday 13^th June, and will cover a route from Belfast to Larne via Newtownabbey, Ballyclare, Kilwaughter and Glenarm/Carnlough.

  

Your support will contribute to Transaid’s Professional Driver Training Project and will help improve road safety in sub-Saharan Africa, where road deaths are the third biggest premature killer after HIV/AIDS and malaria.

 

In much of sub-Saharan Africa driving is seen as a job of last resort and something to do when you have no other skills. There is a huge shortage of qualified drivers and very few training facilities.

 

Infrastructure is poor, vehicles are often poorly managed and badly maintained, and road traffic enforcement and legislation is virtually non existent, resulting in heavily overloaded and poorly driven vehicles and road crashes occur almost daily.

 

The effects of road crashes can have devastating consequences, especially poorer countries where emergency services are non-existent and health services struggle to meet demand. Road crashes often affect young men in their prime and the loss of a breadwinner or the extra burden of caring for someone who is sick or injured can push a family deeper into poverty.

 

In August 2008 Transaid teamed up with the Industrial Training Centre, the only national commercial driver training centre in the whole of Zambia. Using expertise from the UK transport and logistics industry, Transaid helped build the capacity of the ITC to deliver quality driver training to internationally recognised standards. The centre now has five good driver trainers and it has trained over 1000 drivers in the last 18 months.

 

Thanks to the success of the project, Transaid has teamed up with the National Institute of Transport (NIT) in Tanzania where it is working to improve driver training courses for bus and coach, trucks and forklifts.

  

The result of this work means that more drivers are being trained to a higher standard, and have a greater awareness of risks and the skills required for safer and more efficient driving. The donation of several vehicles including trucks, trailers, containers, a bus and a forklift means that more practical training can be given.

 

Stewart Oades, FTA President said: “With a transport industry as professional and well-regulated as ours here in the UK, and roads which are generally of a good standard, it is difficult to appreciate how hazardous road transport can be in other parts of the world. The whole FTA team is looking forward to this challenge and to the opportunity to raise funds for Transaid’s important, life-saving work.”

 

Chris Saunders, CEO Transaid says “We are delighted that FTA is supporting Transaid through this initiative to help raise awareness in this UN decade of global road safety. Our huge thanks go to Stewart and the FTA regions for their commitment to our cause.

 

“When people think of bad transport in Africa, they often think of investing in road infrastructure but very few donors think about the need to train and educate road users at the grassroots. This is where Transaid is making the biggest immediate impact, through changing driver attitude to save many lives as a result.”

 

With your help, the FTA aims to raise £50,000 for Transaid in order to improve lives across Africa by creating better transport.  To contribute to this target, the FTA has set each region an ambitious target of £5,000 for the Cycle Challenge.  All funds up to £2,000 will go to Transaid, with any funds above £2,000 being split 50/50 between Transaid and a local Charity. 

 

Due to an association with one of the Northern Ireland FTA council members, the local organisation that the Northern Ireland region has chosen to support is the The Newforge Taggers (www.newforgetaggers.co.uk), which is a Tag Rugby Football Club for those with learning disabilities.  The club welcomes players with both severe and moderate learning disabilities and has grown from a membership of 24 in the first year in 2006 to over 46 in this, the fifth season. The players who are both male and female come from across the community and are aged between 6 and 44 years of age.

 

On the 11th June 2011 the Newforge Taggers will host the Fifth International Tag Rugby Festival for those with learning disabilities at Newforge Country Club, Belfast. The club last hosted this event in the 2007/2008 season when they entertained 16 teams from England, Wales and the Republic of Ireland. Over the years interest in the sport has grown and this season it is anticipated that Newforge will host 24 teams from around the United Kingdom and Ireland. The monies raised in this event will be used to help meet the costs of hosting the Festival.

 

Please dig deep for these two very worthwhile causes.