GOOD SCHOOL ATTENDANCE EARNS CAMBODIAN SIXTH GRADERS

PEPY, an adventure cycle tour and humanitarian aid organization, announces the launch of its Bike-to-School Program, giving bicycles to students in Cambodia who have shown a commitment to education through high attendance rates. “Over the course of many school visits on our Cambodian cycle tours, we learned that after elementary school, students were often unable to continue on to secondary school due to the long distances they had to travel to attend classes. We researched more and found that rural students are 60% more likely to attend secondary school if their family owns a bike. The Bike-to-School Program is PEPY’s way of helping keep bright kids in school,” said PEPY Ride co-founder, Daniela Papi.

Since 2005 PEPY has been bringing travelers to places they may have only visited in dreams, giving people a chance to intimately experience the beauty of Cambodia’s people and nature as they ride through rural villages like the locals do, on a bicycle. Now, with the help of its Bike-to-School program, PEPY hopes to further extend the reach of its educational contributions. Each $100 donation buys more than a bicycle, it buys a life-changing opportunity for a motivated student. “By encouraging more students to continue their education through high school, the Bike-to-School program is a real opportunity to help communities break the cycle of poverty,” says Daniela.

Many people donate money to support development projects they will never visit, but with PEPY, people can go where their money goes. In the past year, over 80 travelers from 14 countries have visited the organization’s first project, The PEPY Ride School, and enjoyed supporting educational and building projects.

Travelers love seeing first hand the difference they can make when they visit a developing country: former rider Julia Davies, age 33, said after PEPY Ride experience: "This trip has been invigorating, gritty, and fun. It is amazing to think we touched over 2,000 lives at the schools we visited along the way. There is something to be said for the satisfaction of arriving at your destination, tired, dirty and happy. The highlight for me was the combination of team spirit, camaraderie and adventure that developed while connecting with the people in Cambodia.”

PEPY’s tours provide travelers and locals with life-changing experiences. Each adventure trip fee includes a separate, tax deductible, donation fee that supports the ongoing humanitarian projects in Cambodia visited on the tour. Itineraries range from high intensity multi-week cycle trips to week-long volunteer projects focusing on a specific developing area. Each trip is designed to introduce participants to development work in Cambodia and provide an exciting, authentic experience of Cambodian culture and hospitality.

For more information, to make a donation, or to sign up for any of the upcoming volunteer trips, please visit www.pepyride.org. To donate funds in support of this trip, please visit www.firstgiving.com/pepyride.

The PEPY Ride is a New York State registered Non-for-Profit Corporation founded in 2005 to support educational projects in developing countries and disaster relief areas with a focus on the relationship between the environment and our health. Emphasizing education through action, where participants both learn from and give back to the communities they visit, PEPY Tours organizes volunteer and adventure travel in developing countries and redevelopment areas suffering from natural disasters.