3 men, 3 bikes, 3,000 miles in just 30 days

---

Local charity starts the Race for Africa in Kew Gardens

The WaterRelief Race for Africa was launched from the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew by Antonia Okonma, star of ITV’s Bad Girls. She waved the team off at 10.30am on 4th May 2005.

Race for Africa is an audacious challenge in which three intrepid cyclists will attempt to ride from London to Africa and back in just thirty days. The attempt is being made on behalf of Excellent Development, a charity which provides WaterRelief to communities in Africa to sustainably transform their environment by building small-scale dams that provide locally available clean water.

The 3,000 round trip will take Richard Barnes and his support riders Sam & Ben Towndrow through France, over the Pyrenees then across the dangerous Basque region of Northern Spain and on to Gibraltar where they will cross the Strait touching land in Morocco before immediately beginning the return leg.

The Race for Africa Team have been cycling together since they were eight years old. Competing together in the Northern Mountain Bike Association race series and the British Mountain Biking Federation race series, they then moved to competitive road racing and represented the Lakes Road Club together.

“What they are doing is fantastic, I’ll be making sure that the cast of Bad Girls send e-mails of encouragement over the next 4 weeks” said Antonia. Organisers hope the attempt will raise £20,000 for Excellent Development to enable the building of 20 small-scale dams which will provide a safe, clean water supply during the dry season for up to 25,000 people. Women in semi-arid Africa walk up to 6 miles twice a day to collect water for their families. For an average village without a dam, that’s 3,000 miles of walking in just two days, whilst carrying 20 kg of water on their backs.

“The actual ride will be extremely gruelling but the money we raise will make it all worthwhile” said Richard, the team leader. “We just take water for granted here but 400 Kenyan women walk a total of 3,000 miles every day just to get enough water for their basic needs. We feel privileged to be able to do something to help alleviate that for hundreds of families.”

Executive Officer of Excellent Development, Simon Maddrell says, “Half of Kenya’s population don’t have access to clean water. We hope Richard, Ben and Sam’s tremendous endeavours will both raise awareness of this plight and raise money to provide relief for hundreds of families. We are immensely proud of their generosity and bravery and wish them the best.”

For further information about how to support the challenge call Simon Maddrell, Executive Officer on Office 020 8568 7118 or Mobile 07753 826 804. or isit the website www.excellentdevelopment.com or the micro-site at www.RaceforAfrica.com. You can also donate online at www.justgiving.com/water

Excellent Development is a Brentford based charity with 20 years experience that helps disadvantaged communities in Africa to sustainably transform their environment enabling farmers to improve water supplies, food production, health and incomes. They help small self-help community groups to plant trees and build small-scale dams, which promote both conservation and sustainable development.In co-operation with project partners in Africa, Excellent Development aims to build 100 sand dams, to plant 1 million trees and dig 100km of terracing by the year 2010.

May 7, 2005