Child Labour : Yes this barbaric practice is still rampant in many parts of India. Years that should be spent learning , playing and frolicking, far from responsibility, are instead spent in thankless errands that often turn abusive.It takes a heartless mind indeed to put a little child through such an ordeal.

It is alarming how widespead child labour is in our country. According to the statistics given by Indian government there are 20 million child laborers in the country, while other agencies claim that it is 50 million.Children often have to work a full man-day (8 hours) at a stretch with hardly a break. The meals prodvided to these children are bare and lack any nutritional value.

This is a time where must all put our foot down and resolve to eradicate child labour from its very roots in our society. One must choose their own form of expression to spread this social awareness against child labour. We chose what we do best and love most, ride!


Yes, motorcycling is no longer just a form of commuting in India . For us, its a lifestyle. It is more than a mere hobby or an idle fancy but reflects in some manifestation in every aspect of our lives and we feel this is the best way in which we can express our disapproval of child labour. This time we are not just riding for ourselves but for those children who are fast losing one of the most precious gifts of life, the joy of being a child...

Ride Details:

Riders:

Ashutosh (Hyperion)
Amogh
Anant (Antz.bin)
Ankit (ankit63)
Surojit (Surojit)

We will be doing a ~3000 kms trip through Karnataka, Kerala, TN, Maharashtra and Goa from 18th to 26th Sept 2010, to spread awareness against CHILD LABOUR. The pre-decided route that we will be taking is as follows :

Route
Pune --> Mahabaleshwar --> Poladpur --> Panaji -- > Karwar --> Gokarna --> Kundapura --> Someshwar--> Sringeri --> Kudermukh --> Kottigehara -- > Mangalore --> Bikal --> Talparamba--> Mananthavady --> Beenachi --> OOty --> Bandipur --> Mysore --> Bangalore -- > Pune


For exact rote map, refer this map link :Route map

We have also created a facebook page in this regard to gather popular support. Link: Riders for a cause

Now why CHILD LABOUR?

We decided to create awareness against child labour through this ride because we were doing it continuously on a small individual scale. A guy named Shankar (age: 12 years) comes to my office to serve chai. I once asked him about his education, and he said that he doesn’t need that. As I continued to converse with him, I came to know how he was being exploited by this seth. He is just paid a paltry sum of Rs 70/- for a 12 hour shift. Moreover, he also gets treated like a slave by his seth. (I have a video of him saying all this). Then I slowly convinced him to go to night schools. Now he goes to a Kannad school. I felt so happy. As we were discussing about this, we realized that he is just one of the thousands of kids. So we wanted to do something, something, no matter how small it is…

Our Plan:

Our plan basically is to create awareness amongst the less aware by involving as much media as possible. We are also in talks with leading print media for maximum coverage of the ride so that we can reach the maximum number of people. During the ride, we will be doing the following

1.Put stickers in Kannada, Malyalam, Tamil, Marathi and English (local language of each respective state) on our bikes and gear saying “stop child Labour”. This will help us to reach the masses, as at any point of time we will be having one sticker that is in local language.
2. As we stop in dhabas, if we spot any child labourer, talk to them and the dhaba incharge about child labour.
3. We plan our Get-Together with fellow xbhpians from the above mentioned states and and hence we can do something constructive all along our route.