Cycling for Opportunity is a group of seven fourth-year students from the University of Waterloo who are cycling from Vancouver to Waterloo to raise money for two Central American education charities. UW graduate Sarah Kamal founded the group to raise money for underprivileged students in the third world after her experience of working in poverty-stricken neighbourhoods in Nicaragua and Guatemala last summer. If all goes as planned, this will become an annual event that will include more than just University of Waterloo students.

Last summer, University of Waterloo undergraduate Sarah Kamal spent a four month co-op work-term in Nicaragua and Guatemala building her Spanish vocabulary and helping the locals with efficient wood-burning stoves. Spending two months in each of Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, and Santa Rosa del Peñon, Nicaragua, Sarah took away many memories and lessons from people she worked with. From hard working subsistence farmers to children in a day-care centre, she found that "the sobering sight of malnutrition comes in stark contrast to Canada where people can spend more on one trip to the hair stylist than these people spend on food for a year." To top it off, most of Sarah's work and some of the people she worked with got washed away in the floods from hurricane Mitch. From these experiences, Sarah hopes that by forming Cycling for Opportunity she can help improve the quality of life for these people.

This year, Cycling for Opportunity hopes to raise $4,500 for two organizations: the Fair Opportunities Group, which operates a bursary fund for students in Nicaragua, and Escuela de Espanol Pop Wuj, a Guatemalan Spanish language school that administers a local development fund. The group hopes to raise this money mainly by hosting a couple of dinners (one on April 30 in Vancouver and one on June 19 in Waterloo), as well as by asking communities and the public for donations.

The Fair Opportunities Group, originally founded by University of Waterloo alumni, targets promising Nicaraguan high school students who lack the financial resources to continue their education, as well as adults who are unemployed or underemployed and who are seeking new ways to support their families. The fund supports these people by helping them attain university degrees or trade or technical diplomas.

Escuela de Espanol Pop Wuj is a Guatemalan Spanish language school which promotes Guatemalan culture and social projects within the community. Last year the fund they administer concentrated on providing scholarships for students at the primary, secondary, and university levels, and by building much needed fuel-efficient wood-burning stoves and latrines.

For anyone who would like to give to these causes, please send cheques payable to Cycling for Opportunity to:

This year's tour commences on May 1^st in Vancouver and will run for approximately six weeks finishing in Waterloo. The route will follow the Trans Canada highway except in the following places (please note that the actual route followed is different from what was originally planned and explained here):

• At Kamloops they will go up highway 5 in British Columbia to Yellowhead Pass and come down highway 93 in Alberta into Banff.
• At Kenora, Ontario they will head south along south along highway 71 into the United States. In Minnesota they will take highway 5 into Wisconsin, highway 2 through Wisconson into Michigan, and highway 28 through Michigan to Sault Ste. Marie where they will rejoin the Trans Canada highway.
• Just outside of Sault Ste. Marie in Espanola, they will go south on highway 6 across Manitoulin Island where they will take a ferry to Tobermory. From there they will proceed along highway 6 to Elora and then head into Waterloo.

The group has a support car which each member will drive two half-days a week. At nights they will be camping, staying with friends, staying in hostels, or staying in motels. All of the participants are paying for their own expenses.

The seven riders in this years tour are:

• Dhananjai Borwankar from Hamilton - graduating in Environmental Science,
• Natalie Cheng from Ottawa - graduating in Mechanical Engineering,
• David Clarkson from Toronto - in Joint Statistics and Psychology,
• John Harland from Kenora - graduating in Civil Engineering,
• Sarah Kamal from Waterloo - graduating in Operations Research,
• Ben Law from Hamilton - graduating in Computer Science, and
• Phil Meyer from Kirkland Lake - in Computer Science.

For more information, or if you have any questions or comments for the group, please see their web-site or contact them directly:

• web site: http://www.undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca/~blaw/c4o.html
• e-mail: cycling_for_opportunity@yahoo.com
• phone: (519) 577-8162

Please note: the group can be contacted in these ways before, during, and after the tour.