Day 6: Utretch – Ede

Today was by far the most productive day of filming yet and that made me extremely happy! We got up at 7:00am to the beautiful sound of O Canada, over a megaphone by Yashar Nijati, one of the riders and also a member of the wake up crew.

The group quickly made their way to Ziest for a 10:00am meeting at the head office of the Triodos Bank. We were greeted by Gera van Wijk, PR & Communications Manager for International Funds, who kindly helped the riders park their gear and showed us the way to their eco-friendly board room. All the products in this building were made with renewable resources. As we were waiting for everyone to arrive, they offered us organic coffee and biscuits. It was all very pleasant.

Once all riders arrived, Gera introduced us to Frank, Deputy Manager, who manages a team of investors. Riel videotaped the entire session. The discussion started off with Shawn Smith, President of Global Agents for Change, telling Gera and Frank about what the organization does and why they were bicycling across Europe. The bank representatives seemed fairly impressed that a group of young North Americans would travel to Europe to bicycle from Amsterdam to Istanbul to raise $100,000 for microcredit funds.

Next, Frank shared with us some of the banks activities and their objectives.  Their mission is to “…finance(s) companies, institutions and projects that add cultural value and benefit people and the environment, with the support of depositors and investors who want to encourage corporate social responsibility and a sustainable society.” Triodos specializes in four types of funds: microfinance, sustainable trade, renewable trade and venture capital. Most of the discussion surrounded microfinance. We learned that Triodos has been a pioneer in the microfinance sector since 1994, and has financed over 100 institutions, in 40 countries in Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe. Triodos manages 250 million Euros in microfinance funds, which in turn has enable these institutions to have served approximately 4 million people in the world.

Once the Q&A discussion with Frank was complete, the riders quickly rode off to our next destination – Ede. Riel and I took the opportunity to interview Gera before we headed off to Utretch for our next interview for the day. Gera talked to us about what microfinance is, the role of Triodos bank in the financial industry, and what her thoughts are about youth and our path to a sustainable world.

After the interview, we headed to Utretch to meet with Jonathon van der Stok, Secretary General of Youth Service Initiative. The Youth Service Initiative is an organization founded by youth for youth and consists of a one year volunteer program. Their overall objective is to create a “…youth culture of service by encouraging young people to take initiative in their community,” both locally and internationally. The program is divided into three stages: working locally to gain insight into the community, working internationally in an international exchange that includes sustainable development for third world countries, and working on creating an individual project that includes their skills, and interests. Jonathon brought with him one of the youth volunteers, his name was Victor Lorentzen and he was from Norway. Victor was almost at the end of his program, he had worked locally with seniors, gone to Ghana to build playgrounds for impoverished children as part of his international work, and was now organizing a youth soccer (or football as they call it in Europe) workshop that encourages fair play and sportsmanship.

Once we wrapped up our interviews we hit the road and headed to Ede to wrap up the remaining three rider interviews. Our host accommodations in Ede consisted of an army base! The rooms were really cool. We took over three rooms, with each one holding 8 beds. Riel and I managed to wrap up the interviews before sunset.

We then ate dinner, and explored the base. We found a training area, with a climbing wall, hanging rope, and a climbing net. Everyone was pretty tired so we hit the sack by midnight!