Our Recycle event 2013 was successfully completed, it was due to our careful preparation and the most important factor was the team spirit on the activities that we planned: Cycle, Recycle and Support.

Ready to race!

Day one, despite the rain, our team was still moving ahead, riding along the country roads, through town-lets and villages. The ride was made even more fun with the our cycling competition, 4 teams were divided and most of our team member managed to cycle over 65 km just in the morning and this was even made under the rain.

High spirit even rain

To the concept of Recycle, Footprint did not support water bottles for each participant on the ride, everyone was informed to bring their own bottles from home to refill from our big water tank from our truck and vans, to count this success, we did save about 100 bottles of water (500ml) this would have been a big amount of plastic trash, which could take 500 years to decompose.

Our afternoon was filled with community activities to build the small lane linking the village to the stream where 35 families with more than 100 people everyday going up and down this lane for washing, bringing water home, etc…

The lane was often washed away during the raining season and it was often very slippery and very dangerous for the locals to go up and down everyday.

The major fund was from by Mr. Satyaki Chakra who once planned to travel with Footprint but had to cancel his trip due to family’s matter, he decided to contribute his refund to a community project. Of course, our other supports coming directly from Footprint staff, our partners and friends who participated on the event.

At homestay in Suoi Lon village, right on the bank of Hoa Binh reservoir, after some swimming on the lake, we enjoyed the traditional dishes of the Thai host and our evening was filled with environment games and fun travel stories from all participants.

On day two, we were offered a better weather, no rain at all but the roads were heavily damaged after the big rain of the first day, we got to push the truck and vans, this was fun anyway.

Due to the bad condition of the planned routes after the rain, we cycled less on this second day toward Mai Chau, a relaxing 20 km through the paddy fields and villages to get to the lunch spot in Pom Coong village.

A delicious lunch was served on one of the house-on-stilts to treat our members after hard working time cycling and community support. Our further reward was the certification that was handed to all members on our participation and community support.

To our conclusion, we’ve made it successfully as what we planned, to the team of Footprint, this was small thing we do but we feel the big impacts and changes will be.

And everyone was back with very happy smile on their faces and already asking for our next Recycle event in May 2014, Mr. Tuan Anh said “it was so fun, well organized, environment protection and the most important thing that we had our hands supporting the poor communities that we do not often have time to do so, I will certainly join this event again and it’s my pride”.