Guts for Change - Fahrradtour für einen guten Zweck

We embarked on our bicycle tour in order to raise awareness about the theme of sanitation and water conservation and to collect funds towards financing a dry toilet project in a village in India. We will be constantly updating facebook, twitter and our blog with updates, videos and photographs in order to keep interest high.

We are a group of five people, four of whom are on the road between Berlin and India and a fifth, Sven Riesbeck, our water and sanitation specialist who is holding the fort in Berlin and will fly to India to implement the project in Garade, Pune ensuring the best use of the funds we will have raised.

Water is essential for life. In many parts of the world people do not have access to safe drinking water and proper sanitation facilities and in India this lack is particularly high. People have asked us "Why toilets?" without realising the amount of dignity that having available sanitation facilities accords in their lives.

Our goal is to create a documentary about this journey which will be engaging but will also educate about water and sanitation issues in the third world and show how it is possible, whoever you are, to make a change in the world, albeit a small one. We hope to motivate people to contribute to the project but also live their own world-changing, seemingly unachievable dreams.

The point is to get to India and raise as much funding as possible for the humanitarian project. We also want to have as much social engagement as possible. The project is for the average person who wants to improve the world we are living in in their own way and can participate by funding the project and, further, we want to inspire people out of their routine and to consider the innovative ways they could change the world themselves as well. We want people to see the possibilities in the world and their lives through new eyes.

If our project is followed and supported by a lot of people then the people of Garade will benefit greatly through improved and dignified sanitation and the cessation of pollution of water sources as well as the improvement of their agricultural practices. We have already secured partners in the German Toilet Organisation based in Berlin and EcoSan foundation, based in India who have extensive experience in the use of, establishment and training in dry toilet solutions as well as our own expert. This means that you can be ensured that our project is well thought out, well supported and is legitimate..

Many pledges per kilometre that we cycle will increase our motivation to reach India and will keep you interested in our progress. Although we are likely to face obstacles your support will get us through!

First we will apply the funding towards financing the tour. We are self-funded to date and try to live as cheaply as possible but do have certain costs including electricity, internet costs (essential for our navigation and updating of our social media and charging of our equipment) as well as the simple living costs of four people on the road for six months.

We have already paid for all the camera equipment necessary for documenting the trip personally which was quite costly but we are likely to have wear and tear to the equipment and parts that require replacement over a 6 month period on the road. Due to the extreme expense of bike and camera insurance we have been unable to afford this and being able to obtain funds from crowd funding would mean less of a worry about breakdowns or replacement.

Our equipment is of utmost importance in being able to properly document the project, continuously update our pages with captivating content which will draw in supporters. We want to be able to produce a quality documentary at the end of our journey with the funds raised which will save our efforts for posterity, educate and cause people to continue to benefit the project.

Any additional funds raised on this platform will be applied to the toilet project.