Four friends set off on a three-day bike ride across Holland, in sub-zero temperatures, to raise money for Calcutta Rescue’s new Education on Wheels project. 

The project currently involves bringing mobile classrooms into the slums of Kolkata to ensure that 80 pre-school children get the support they urgently need. Schools in Kolkata have been closed since the Covid crisis began a year ago. Without face-to-face teaching now to give them the basic skills and confidence they need, their whole educational future is in jeopardy. Recently, West Bengal government has opened school for students of class 9 to 12. But the younger students are still at home.

Calcutta Rescue already converted its minibus into a mobile classroom and is about to buy another one to expand this vital work to primary school students also.On 13th February, Henk Loos, Calcutta Rescue’s Dutch Support Group member and his friends Robert, Hans and Erick cycled from Eindhoven to Maastricht to raise funds for this project – money  which will go towards purchasing nutritious midday snacks and, educational materials for children, PPE for staff and fuel for the vehicles. 

Henk Loos, who organised the ride, said: “Schools in Kolkata have been closed for 10 months – can you imagine! It is very important that we have this ride so that children don’t become dropouts.”

So far the team have raised Euros 3547 towards the cost of running two mobile classrooms bringing education to young children in the slums of Kolkata.