Crossing a border can take between two hours to a few days. In Africa you have to learn to be patient and flexible. “You face new cultures, new ways to get across borders. “I know Burkina Faso well, I have been involved there for more than 20 years, but the other countries are different, culturally and administratively. Tuscher says the journey will test his patience and flexibility. Of course, crossing Africa by minibus is not easy task. By road you see how populations and cultures change.” You meet local people, fisher men, farmers, tailors. And when you want to spend more than one night in a place, you appreciate it. When you travel by plane you reach your destination in a few hours and you even don’t know the name the guy sitting next to you. “Crossing West Africa by road, meeting people day after day. “The first trip was a great experience,” says Tuscher. This time around he has the additional help of a number of National Associations and Regional Associations in collecting donations.īut what is the driving factor that is behind this second trip? In 2015 a message on social media brought three tonnes of equipment. On 19 September 2019, he will set out on a similar journey, but this time collecting equipment from a number of European hockey events being held in the coming months.įrom previous experience, Tuscher knows that persuading people to donate equipment will be the easy part. The success of that venture, four years ago, has prompted Tuscher to repeat the initiative but on a much larger scale. Having collected hundreds of sticks and other hockey kit, he then faced the problem of how to get it from Belgium to Africa. His aim was to take the equipment to the African nation of Burkina Faso where he hoped to inspire the local youngsters to take up hockey and improve their health and social welfare in the process. In 2015 Tuscher, who has a long history in hockey humanitarian projects, drove a van from Switzerland to Belgium picking up hundreds of pieces of donated hockey equipment from local clubs and associations along the way. What do you get if you take a hockey-loving humanitarian and give him a mini-bus? Well, in Gabriel Tuscher’s case the combination led to an ambitious project called La Route du Stick.
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