Everybody says that we must preserve the nature somehow. But very little people do something concrete. Fortunately, we have a lot of young people in our country united in Youth Environmental Network (YEN) who are always ready to do something necessary and understandable. One of such actions is to attract people’s attention so that they would ride bicycles more and use cars less. Why?
From the screens of all TV companies, from the pages of newspapers and magazines and also from the radio sets we hear about the problem of climate change. The problem is simple – we emit too much greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Concentration of such gases rises more and more and capability of the earth and oceans to absorb them is falling day by day. We cut down forests that feed on the carbon which is a part of these gases, and now carbon is not kept in the trees but is flying in the atmosphere. We change land use which also leads to emissions of the gas in big quantities which earlier was kept in the ground and now is let out to the air. We use cars even for small distances, being lazy of going on foot. While going on is so good. Or use a bicycle!!! During one year a car emits the amount of gases that is equal to the weight of this car. Do you know how many cars are bought daily?
Everybody tries to buy a car. Of course, car is an essential part of our life. It is necessary harm. Technologies are developing, and cars become more and more ecological. But now they are not ecological yet and right now something could be done to reduce transport emissions into the air. How, you will probably ask. Use public transport more. It’s so pleasant to use metro when on a hot summer day. Our fixed-run taxi network is developed pretty well. Of course, timetable for buses leaves much to be desired. But still, when you buy a token in metro instead of going by taxi or your own car, please remember, that you buy not just a passage ticket. You also protect the atmosphere. And you also invest money into industry which is more useful for the nature than cars.
But there is one more fascinating type of transport which is not developed well in our country – a bicycle. In Belgium the prime-minister goes to work by bicycle. And it is thought to be quite all right. In China there are more bicycles than in the whole Europe. And nobody would say that China is a backward country.
In our country cars owners usually do not think bicyclists to be members of the road traffic. But after all, nobody cancels traffic rules and a bicyclist is a full member of the traffic.
A group of initiative young people decided to do something in order to change somehow the situation and attract public attention to such a clean transport means like bicycle. Exactly they proposed to organize a game which will be interesting for everyone.
What is it exactly?!
The game is similar to the game titled “The treasure hunt”. This game has a lot of titles – Cops and robbers, Pathfinders etc. The purpose is the following. There are several teams. Each of them is given a task in the starting point after solving a definite task. Some location is given as an answer where a team must execute the next task and get a key to the location of the next task. And so on.
Each of the tasks will be interesting and will touch upon the subject of the nature. Therefore, all participants should know well this matter and know at least something about what biodiversity means, what climate change is, what important things are given to us by the ground and what problems we are having now. Of course, the more a team knows, the better it is and more chances to win the game it has. That’s why we recommend to all participants to read special literature. The publication “Let it always be…” and our study pack “BIODIVERSITY, LAND DEGRADATION AND CLIMATE CHANGE” is a minimum that a participant must know. We will provide more information about other sources which we recommend to introduce with. But now that is enough.
The game is based on the knowledge, sharpness and team spirit, not on the ability of people to ride a bicycle quickly. Participants will just use bicycle for moving. Each team shall cover similar distance.
Though the ability of the teams to respond rapidly to the tasks and speed in passing all rounds depend on various abilities of the participants of each team. The team that passes all rounds first will be the winner.
Who can participate?
We want to help in realization of the bicycle game. Therefore, we invite all enthusiasts who can unite in teams. Unfortunately, we can’t take responsibility for the formation of teams or receiving lf any approvals. Therefore, make teams voluntarily, with your friends, mates and colleagues.
6 teams were invited in a whole. The maximum amount of participants in one team is 6 persons but not less than 4 persons. At that, not less than 2 team members should be females. But probably someone decides to create fully female team.
Each team must form and apply for participation till 15 June 2010. To the present moment 4 teams have already submitted applications.
Why GEF SGP?
The GEF Small Grants Programme decided to support this initiative as any other useful work connected with Environment preservation. Promoting of clean transport is directly connected with reduction o f the load on the climatic system of the planet. The GEF supports projects with million budget oriented to the development of bicycle transport in multimillion cities of the world. We decided to support this initiative in Tashkent. The GEF SGP allocates valuable prizes to those who win in this bicycle game.
And what will participants get?
This is game. Of course, winners will be rewarded as it was mentioned above. The GEF SGP hopes that the participants will like the prizes which will make participation more motivated.
These prizes are waiting for the winners:
1st place
Each member of the winning team will take a bicycle
2nd place
Red Fox sleeping-bag is for each participant of the team.
3rd place
Carbon fishing-rod “Shimano” for the right fishing, not by nets, but by rod in the rivers with strong stream (mountain rivers, Karasoo, etc.) for each participant of the team.
The prizes are good, therefore hurry up. As you can see all prizes are connected with nature and are made for people who value and love nature. Who understand its importance.
But prizes are not the main objective. We hope that all participants will be interested in taking part in this game. The main thing is to have zeal, will for victory, sharpness, interest and team spirit. This is more interesting than spending this day sitting on the sofa and watching TV.
We also hope that this game will not be out of journalists’ attention and they can cover this game in mass media correctly and beautifully.
