Donated bicycles help Uganda’s HIV/AIDS program

Kampala (Uganda) – The Tour d’Afrique Foundation, the social arm of the TDA Global Cycling, donated last march around 20 bicycles to non-governmental organizations working to prevent HIV/AIDS in Uganda.

Five of the bikes donated by the Foundation were purchased from the book “Mais que um Leão por Dia” by Brazilian journalist Alexandre Costa Nascimento, the first cyclist from a Latin American country to cross Africa from Cairo to Cape Town in a bicycle in the Tour d’Afrique expedition.

The transfer of a percentage of the sales of the book to the TDA Foundation was an initiative of the author, in partnership with Editora Nossa Cultura and TDA Global Cycling, promoter of the expedition that crosses the African continent by bicycle, from Cairo to Cape Town.

The ceremony, held in Kampala, delivered bicycles to the NGO CAP/AIDS, which works to promote better health and education in Africa. The equipment will be used by nurses and health agents in actions to treat the infected people and for education and awareness programs to avoid the spread of the disease in communities in the interior of the country.

CAP/AIDS works to operate the Hope Home in Boro Boro, northern Uganda – a center for HIV education, support and livelihood training for young orphans and caregivers of people living with HIV.

It is estimated that 7% of the adult population in Uganda was infected with the HIV virus – making the country the 10th in the world with the highest prevalence of this disease. By 2015, the Ugandan population living with the HIV virus was estimated at 1.4 million. In the same year, 28.2 thousand deaths were registered as a result of AIDS in this African country.

The founder and director of the TDA Global Cycling, Henry Gold, flew to Kampala to personally deliver the bikes to the NGO. “It is a great pleasure to give bikes to CAP / AIDS because we have a very strong confidence in their ability to do the right thing, they help the right people and they have the right attitude, which is always something fundamental when you are doing a donation – you can see who is getting it, and these donations can often make a difference of life and death for people”, Gold said.

The goal behind donating bicycles to these organizations is to raise awareness of bicycles as an alternative and often more beneficial means of transport as well as support bicycle defense and promote projects that protect the environment.

With information and photos of Brad Davis, TDA Global Cycling