Journey to Santiago 2012 - Keep on believe

Because we Believe in helping the ones that need the most, we did not give up and we embrace again the goal of helping the Acreditar Association!This project is a follow up of t...

Because we Believe in helping the ones that need the most, we did not give up and we embrace again the goal of helping the Acreditar Association!

This project is a follow up of the campaign "Rumo a Santiago 2012 – 1000 kilometers fora Acreditar" which, unfortunately, was not able to hit 100% of its financing. But because we truly believe on this cause that drives us and on the ability of all of you for helping solidarity projects as the one we present, we retake this campaign completely sure that we will succeed!

Project Rumo a Santiago has the mission of promoting the Way of Santiago. As a social project, it also includes the support of solidarity institutions by including them on the range of activities of each organized crossing of the Ways of Santiago.

For this purpose we have an online platform at www.rumoasantiago.com for preparing trips, share information and experiences about the Way. 

This project was born officially in 2011, with the promotion of a bicycle tripalong the800 kilometers of the French Way of Santiago. By that time we considered a natural process to associate this project with a solidarity cause, thus we collaborated with the Acreditar Association  (Association of Parents and Friends of Children with Cancer).

In 2012 there is a new edition of this project, with several ambitious objectives: the crossing of the Via de la Plata by bicycle, which is the Way of Santiago that starts in Sevilla and goes along 1000 kilometers up to Santiago de Compostela. This edition is again associated with Acreditar, with the objective of raising funds to donate 1000€ to this association (1€ per kilometer). Therefore its designation is “Rumo a Santiago 2012 – One thousand kilometers for Acreditar”.

This crossing was performed by two persons(Norberto Henriques and Jorge Frazão), from July 27^th to August 10^th, during 15 days.

The solidarity cause consists on the support and promotion of Acreditar in several different ways:

• Raising funds to allow to donate 1000€ (1€ for each kilometer) to Acreditar through the PPL platform; 
• Promotion of this cause on every produced materials (posters, flyers, cycling equipment, website, facebook);
• Exhibit about the project that took place on Leiria Shopping for two weeks.

We were recently on the studios of SIC Notícias (a national TV news channel) to talk about our project. You can view the interview on this link. The TV program Sociedade Civil also received us with open arms, where we not only promote this project, but also other good initiatives with solidarity purposes.

How will the donations be used?

It is important to understand how all the donations be used, as not everyone that have been contacting us don’t quite understand the difference between our project goal (1750€) and the 1000€ that will effectively be donated to Acreditar.

The funding through the PPL platform will fundamentally allow the donation of 1000€ to Acreditar Association, finance the promotion materials and initiatives of this edition (including the rewards on the scope of the philosophy of the PPL platform and the commission of this funding). Although we initially included the funding of 12% of the crossing of the Via de la Plata, as the donations that we receive are subject to taxes (which were not considered on the initial budget), this fact prevented the funding of any portion of the crossing at all.

If the raised money exceeds the target value (1750€), 50% of that value will also be donated to Acreditar Association, whereas the remaining 50% will cover some expenses of the crossing of Via de la Plata and will be used to prepare the 2013 edition of this project.

How do I make my donation?

The process is very simple:

1. create an account on the PPL site;
2. deposit an amount on your PPL account (you can deposit more than what you want to donate to our project, if you want to support other projects as well) by using Multibanco system, bank transfer or PayPal/credit card;
3. Go to our project’s page and enter the amount you want to donate on the text box within the area “Invest now” (top right area of the page) and press the “Contribute” button.

And that’s it!

About the author

Norberto Henriques - 35 years old, Professor of Informatics Engineering, researcher on the area of urban mobility, lives in Leiria and is the author of the project Rumo a Santiago.

Sports and bicycle in particular have been a part of my life since I was a child. Mountain biking arises in 2003 and from there onwards I explored several different modalities of this sport. It didn’t took long until this turned out my main hobby. In 2010 I discovered the Way of Santiago, when I crossed the Central Portuguese Way and repeated this experience in 2011 (on the French Way) with plans to repeat the experience again in 2012 (Via de la Plata).

But bicycle isn’t just my hobby, it is also an important part of my PhD research, where I am studying issues related to alternative human mobility in urban spaces.

My motivation, aside the adventure spirit that these trips include, is the opportunity to contribute somehow to help the ones that need the most. This is what drives me to face this Rumo a Santiago project with determination and wanting to make of it a success case.

Jorge Frazão - 33 years old, lives in Lisbon, military on the Portuguese Army, and orienteering is its passion!

Above all, the taste for adventure associated with the need to discover new limits and challenges drove me to know this project better. Mountain biking, which is a part of me for several years, is just the perfect excuse for live new experiences.

Joining this initiative is just the best argument to continue to adventure myself and to get my bicycle to know the world. The fact that this trip is associated with a noble cause motivated me even more to share this adventure with Norberto. To sum it all up, I enjoy this, and as we should always do what pleases us the most, as soon as this idea arose, I did not hesitate a second. Let’s go!

Budget and due dates

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