Mountaineer Shanti Rai cycles 2,500 km for greener and cleaner India

NAMCHI, 17 Feb: Sikkimese mountaineer Shanti Rai is back from a challenging 35-day bicycle expedition covering 2,500 kms across the country. The expedition, Go Green Girls (GGG), was organized by the Women’s Adventure Network of India (WANI) between 05 January and 07 February, 2014.
The participants cycled through the west coast of India from Kutch to Kerala covering distance of approximately 2,500 kilometers. Fifteen women took part in the 35-day cycling expedition that was flagged off from Bharuch, Gujarat.
The team cycled 50-120 kilometers every day which amounts to about five to seven hours of cycling each day. The aim behind organizing the expedition is to promote a greener, cleaner and healthier India and encourage younger women to higher levels of achievement through presentations in schools and colleges.
Shanti was selected after a tough physical endurance test in Nagpur and is the first woman from Sikkim to participate in such an adventure event. 28-year-old Shanti has an MPhil in Botany and had never cycled before. She reached her home town, Namchi today.
WANI is a women’s organisation committed to empowering women through adventure. It is the brainchild of a few passionate women adventurers who decided to get together to create a powerful movement that will sweep across India. This initiative resulted in the birth of the Women Adventure Network of India (WANI). One of the missions of the organization is to bring women of all adventure sports on one platform.
WANI had organized a similar cycling expedition from Kolkata-Kanyakumari where 15 women cycled 3000 kms in 35 days from 26 Jan-28 Feb in 2011.