Doctor rides for rural education in Africa

A LOCAL man has embarked on an ambitious fundraising journey that will see him cycle over two thousand kilometres around Uganda.

Dr Brad Hodge is a lecturer at La Trobe University’s Department of Rural Health and began his five-week backpacking trip on 21 January and said it will be a proper adventure.

“I’ve done cycling trips before,” he said. “Last time was the Bendigo to Uluru trip which was similar k’s but all on bitumen, but this one’s in another country so I don’t know where I’m going to sleep at night.”

The trip is aimed at raising $25000 to fund the construction of a community-based education centre in Rural Uganda.

“We’re working with a local organisation called I am Someone,” Dr Hodge. “They support local, Ugandan but also other African nation organisations, to do projects looking after kids who have no support.”

Dr Hodge said he will have the opportunity to visit the site of the new education centre which is located in Kasese district in Western Uganda.

“That education centre will mean that in that community they can actually teach people, whether it’s trades or sexual health or any of those different things,” he said.

The route was devised by Dr Hodge with advice from Logan Watts of bikepacking.com, in conjunction with information posted online by other cyclists who have completed similar trips in Uganda.

“Those maps will act as a bit of a guide, and then I’ll be making a point to talk to locals about situations in certain areas, whether it’s good to get through,” he said.

“There are places where you’re going through game parks and you have to pay for someone to ride along with you, so it’ll very much be each day chatting to someone and then making a decision based on that.”

Over the course of the five-weeks Dr Hodge will be shooting video content and taking photos which he will update when he can.

To follow Dr Hodge’s progress and find out how to donate visit bradhodge.com