Ahmedabad, India, March 25, 2024: While Pragnya Mohan always had access to bicycles growing up, she realised this was not the case for many young girls struggling to travel to school in her home town of Ahmedabad, India.
Now, with the support of the IOC’s Young Leaders Programme, Pragnya has created a project that provides bicycles to young female students for daily travel and she aims to empower 1,000 girls in 2024.
As India’s first and only athlete to compete at the Triathlon World Cup, and the current South Asian and national triathlon champion, Pragnya Mohan has always wanted to support the less privileged through sport.
After her successful application for the IOC Young Leaders Programme in 2023, she set out to identify the main challenges affecting young women in her hometown district, and discovered that there were high dropout rates from primary to secondary school, limited public transport options and, subsequently, few employment opportunities available to women.
This inspired “Ek Beti, Ek Cycle”, a project that means “one daughter, one bike”. Pragnya saw an opportunity to use social media to encourage people to donate their unused bicycles, which could then be refurbished and handed over to young female students for commuting.
Volunteers would also lead training camps designed to build the students’ confidence to cycle on public roads.
“During the first year of the programme, I learned that, around my city of Ahmedabad, girls who graduate from the eighth grade have to travel as far as 6km each way to school,” said Pragnya.
“With curfews, limited public transport and parents not having the money to buy a bicycle, many girls are forced to drop out. Education has the power to change lives, so it wasn’t right that they could miss out because of those issues.”
As an IOC Young Leader, Pragnya launched her pilot project in November 2023 with 22 ninth-grade female students living in the area. They each received a donated bicycle and attended a six-day camp focused on road safety and bike maintenance.
In 2024, “Ek Beti, Ek Cycle” aims to reach 1,000 girls around Ahmedabad, with the ultimate goal being for every girl in India to have access to a bike.
Source: https://olympics.com/ioc/news