DROP AND RIDE
Please note: Because of the current situation in Afghanistan, Drop and Ride cannot operate anymore. For this reason, we unfortunately had to end the cooperation in 2021.
Drop and Ride was founded as a bike club in 2016 in Kabul, Afghanistan. The club offers cultural events, bike training and educational programs for the youth of Kabul. Today, Drop and Ride is operated by the Peace and Freestyle Organization (PFO), a non-profit organization registered in Afghanistan.
“Drop and Ride” symbolizes “dropping” the weapon and “riding” a bike instead. Drop and Ride resulted from a youth initiative from West-Kabul that wanted to create a bicycle club to address social problems through sport. This is an important and unique offer for a crisis-ridden and dangerous city like Kabul. Of particular note is the club’s effort to offer all activities equally to boys and girls. Drop and Ride wants to create a safe environment for Kabul’s youth to enable sports, social exchange and education. The association currently has about 50 members and is open to anyone interested.
The youth group offers training from basic cycling up to jumps and stunts on the mountain bike. The training is based on internet videos and the knowledge is transferred from experienced members to beginners. The regular practice of sport and the self-organized and participative character of the club opened up new perspectives for boys and girls of Kabul and changed their perspective on the future of Afghanistan.
Drop and Ride embodies not only sports activities but also the social commitment of the members.
The club is strongly committed to values, such as peace, democracy and equality between men and women. For this, Drop and Ride participates in events and plans to host own events in the future in order to approach these topics through sport and culture.
In the beginning, Drop and Ride consisted of loose training on public squares and streets in Kabul. Until today, Drop and Ride still organizes a weekly group ride on the streets. In the meantime, however, the group managed to meet mainly for regular training sessions on a closed sports field, which offers more safety and better training opportunities. At the training area the club equipment is stored in a shipping container.
Drop and Ride was equipped with high-quality sports equipment at the end of 2018 in a large-scale fundraising campaign with the help of many private individuals, clubs, companies and state institutions from Europe.
Now Drop and Ride is equipped with high-end bikes, ramps, and protective gear. The people behind Abasha made this possible and now we want to continue to support Drop and Ride in the long term.
For Afghanistan, the approach of offering the training equally to girls and boys deserves special mention.
Drop and Ride enables female members to train in groups, some of which are separated according to gender and some of which are mixed. Due to the commitment for this special offer, some female members of the association now have improved their skills on the bike impressively. This backs all female members in difficult social surroundings and helps to open the restrictive role of women for them.
After the broad equipment with sports equipment and a storage container, the focus is now on the development of an educational program, which will accompany the sporting activities of the club. Most members have already completed advanced first aid courses together. Through further educational courses, members should develop their skills, especially in the area of communication. In this way, they can share their vision for a future Afghanistan better and improve their professional prospects. For this purpose, several courses in English and computer use have already been offered. These are now also organized in different skill levels in order to promote further development.
The support of Drop and Ride is the origin of the idea for Abasha. Accordingly, the support for this project is very important to us. At Drop and Ride, young Afghans are committed to sports as well as social issues. This requires courage and conviction because the conditions in Kabul could hardly be more difficult. We want to support Drop and Ride on the difficult path to a sustainable project structure. An important step in this direction was the founding of the NGO Peace and Freestyle Organization (PFO) in Afghanistan. This provides the volunteers behind Drop and Ride with new opportunities and should improve their access to public funding.
Since the financial situation of most members is very difficult, even the smallest membership fees can hardly be paid. Together with Drop and Ride and project partners, we want to build up a financial structure that makes it possible to offer all activities completely free of charge in the long term. We would be happy if you would like to support Drop and Ride with a one-time or maybe even a recurring donation! Even small amounts can make a difference. Thank you!
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