A pencil and a dream can take you anywhere, said APJ Abdul Kalam. That’s a dictum that the co-founders of Ride for Cause believe in. Started in 2018 by Rakesh Ramesh, Sanjay S and Madhu PK, the group works to revamp government schools, provide necessary books to kids and even helps them study during these COVID times.
Sanjay says, “It all started when Rakesh and I were riding one day towards Bandipur forest region. We came across a little boy and gave him a pencil. He was really happy to see the pencil as he had never seen one in his life. That day, we decided that whenever we go on a bike ride, we would ride for a cause. Every weekend, we started visiting the government schools in the rural areas, checked their requirements and worked on those.”
As a part of their various causes, Sanjay and his team took to painting school walls, cleaning them and improving their infrastructure. He says, “More than 80 per cent of the government schools in Karnataka are in the rural areas. We have revamped eight schools so far and the attendance in these schools has also seen gradual improvement. Recently, we revamped a government higher primary school in Ballegere near Tumakuru. Besides this, the Ride For Cause team has designed workbooks for government school kids that help them in learning and recalling basic concepts of Science, Math and English. We have also provided sticker and tangram books to over 1,000 children in 23 different schools across Karnataka. The idea behind distributing these books is to continue the process of learning.”
When asked about their plans for the future, Sanjay says, “A toy company called Spin Master Global has given us over 2,000 toys. We are planning to distribute them among children living in tribal regions. At the same time, we are working to build small Science labs as well as mini libraries for kids in different government schools. We are studying different library models so that we can come up with a unique one. We hope to bring this to reality soon.”
