By
|Rebels Among Us
One of the joys of getting on a motorcycle is that you don’t always know where the road will take you. For lifelong motorcycling fan Mike Haley, it took him to the founding of a charitable organization that could change the lives of others in a profound way.
Despite a successful career in business, Haley was feeling unfulfilled when he took that life-changing motorcycle ride from Minneapolis to South America. Along the journey, he stopped at an orphanage in Mexico, where he spent time with the kids and saw how a little nurturing went a long way.
Haley became so moved by their plight that he founded the nonprofit World Riders Foundation with a mission to build schools — and hope — for orphans in developing nations.
Its first initiative: the Boda Boda Project, which will transform the Good Care Children’s Ministry (GCCM) orphanage in Mityana, Uganda, into an academy for up to 300 students, with a dorm, primary school, dining hall, and soccer field. (If you’re curious, “boda boda” is a term used for motorcycles and motorcycle taxis in East Africa.)
The Boda Boda Project requires building everything from the ground up. We’re talking running water, electricity, and toilets — basic amenities the children do not currently have. Long-term, the goal is to sustain the orphanage with monthly support for teacher salaries and school supplies.
If you want to help, you can buy a T-shirt on the World Riders Foundation website.
Haley says he’s a big believer in the transformative powers of shelter and, more important, education. “If you provide those basic needs, and rights, over the course of an orphan’s childhood, you can change their potential opportunities,” he says. “One child at a time, one classroom at a time.”