AIMS

1. Raise awareness of everyday things that everyday people can do every day to reduce greenhouse emissions.
2. Raise awareness that Australians are the biggest per capita emitters of greenhouse emissions but that it is people from other countries and wildlife that pay the biggest and most immediate penalty for our pollution.
3. Raise awareness of the link between climate change and the ongoing world wide crisis of refugees.
4. To learn about European history / culture, WWI & WWII and the ways in which these things have impacted on the creation of the world in which we live.
5. To give our students an opportunity to learn more about history, culture and themselves and to better equip them to face the challenges of a 21st century life.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Spending 3 weeks with a group of excellent humans with a variety of life experiences, views, hopes and dreams.
• Volunteering with Care4Calais and Mobile Refugee Support, NGOs which work on the frontline assisting refugees from all over the world who are currently in the areas around France and Belgium.
• Touring the battlefields of The Western Front, Normandy and Europe and learning of those who gave so much so that we may have so much.
• Visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum & Memorial and Weiliczka Salt Mine
• Exploration of Paris (cycling the Champs Elysees, The Louvre, Eifel Tower etc) Amsterdam & Berlin.

AIMS:

• In the 100th Anniversary of ANZAC, to give thanks and respect to those who gave so much for our benefit.
• To physically lend a hand and to raise funds for the ongoing projects of the Kokoda Track Foundation.
• To offer our students a significant personal challenge and an opportunity to learn, grow and become leaders within their own communities.
• To highlight that Australians are the biggest per capita emitters of greenhouse emissions … but that it is people in developing nations and wildlife who pay the biggest and most immediate penalties for our pollution…. And that we think this is unAustralian.

Having already ridden from Darwin to Melbourne in 2009 and from Ballarat to Pt Douglas in 2014, in June/July 2015, a group of Rode RAGE (Ride Against Greenhouse Emissions) students will tackle one of the world’s most daunting challenges …. To walk The Kokoda Track.
Along the way we will take the time to work on educational and health community development projects run by The Kokoda Track Foundation as well as raising funds to support their ongoing programs.
Our group will also lay poppies and other personal items from members of the RSL and 39th Battalion Association as a mark of respect and gratitude for what was given so that we may enjoy the lives we have today.

3996km from Ballarat Town Hall to the Port Douglas Beach, including a 24hour track race in the RACQ Tachnology Challenge along the way.

Why:

• To raise awareness of everyday solutions to reducing greenhouse emissions available to everyday people….every day.
• To raise funds for sustainable wildlife, humanitarian, energy and food programs to assist our global neighbours who do not have the same opportunities that we do…and to draw the links between climate change and wildlife endangerment & extreme poverty.
• To highlight the danger that the Great Barrier Reef and Daintree Rainforest may not exist for our children.
• To provide our students with opportunities to learn first hand about the consequences of human activities and to make a real and practical contribution to sustainable solutions.
• To equip our students to become youth leaders for a sustainable and just future in their communities and beyond.

After 10 years of research and development, 3775 from Darwin Town Hll to Ballarat Town Hall to Parliment House Melbourne , two world titles and on the back of the success of their 2008 Sydney-Ballarat Rode RAGE, the students from Damascus College ’s Energy Breakthrough Team think its time to stop talking about the problems of Global Warming and concentrate more on the solutions.

With the students having reached speeds of 115kph during their recent win in the World Future Cycle Challenge, Team organiser, Mark McLean says that they anticipate completing the challenge in 11 riding days and plan to be welcomed home on the steps of Parliament House Melbourne by Minister for the Environment, Climate Change and Innovation Gavin Jennings and World Vision CEO Rev. Tim Costello.

Along the way the students will visit as many communities as possible to give out information as to the options that are easily available to ordinary people, groups and communities to reduce their greenhouse emissions. The team will broadcast a live web cast (our one day Sydney to Ballarat Rode RAGE in 2008 attracted over 220,000 individual hits from 63 different countries …we envisage 2009 being much bigger) from the bus and from inside the solar vehicle, have our position shown on google-map, and be able to send and receive e-mails via this website.

The event will also raise funds which will be donated to projects conducted by the Alternative Technology Association – International Projects Group, which provide sustainable energy solutions to communities in Timor who do not have access to the opportunities we have in Australia . To address the more immediate needs of hunger and poverty, and to draw the link between climate change and extreme poverty, funds will also be donated to Caritas and World Vision projects which provide sustainable solutions to assisting people to develop ongoing streams of income and/or food in Asia, Africa and Europe.

Thus we aim to make a real and immediate difference across 4 Continents as well as an indirect but just as real difference across the whole planet.

Through their experiences in the Energy Breakthrough Team, our members have become aware of a number of groups and organisations which offer affordable products which will give everybody the opportunity to become part of the solution to Global Warming as well as a variety of easy steps that can be taken every day, by every body in Australia and now we want to share our learning with as many people as possible, whilst simultaneously assisting people in our global village who do not have the same opportunities that we do.

1009km from Sydney Opera House to Parliament House Canberra

to Ballarat Town Hall in 23hours 48mins. 

AIMS

• To raise awareness of solutions to greenhouse emissions
• To raise funds for sustainable energy and food programs

Each year we compete in a variety of track races around the country including Wonthaggi Human Powered Grand Prix, Victorian HPV Series races at Casey, Bendigo and Knox, Australian International Pedal Prix Super Series races at Mt Gambier, Adelaide, Loxton, Busselton and Murray Bridge as well as the RACV Energy Breakthrough in Maryborough Victoria and the Fraser Coast Technology Challenge in Maryborough Queensland.

“We’d rather make a friend than win a race… but we try to do both.”