by News Desk
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (Sin Chew Daily/ANN) - An avid cyclist Peter Yoong was cycling to tour the world and raising fund for underprivileged children at the same time. When his two-year cycling project was stopped at 11th month, he decided to continue with the fund raising by selling photographs taken by him during his travel.
For close to a year, avid cyclist Peter Yoong rode a total of 8,250km visiting 22 countries with his 60kg of luggage.
He launched a charity project to raise fund for the unprivileged children, inspired by a British known as Robert who spent three years touring the world for the same cause.
“It is time for me to contribute to the society,’’ said Yoong.
This is Yoong’s semi-retirement plan at the age of 59. On 19 November 2017, he left home in Puchong and started his journey to Thailand, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Turkey, Croatia, France and other countries. He returned home on 29 October 2018.
Yoong starting riding bicycle for long distance at the age of 21. When he proposed to travel the world by riding bicycle, his wife could not understand his reason for leaving the comfort of a home.
“When you have rice every day, don’t you feel bored? So you need some seasoning. The same for life too. If you do not take some risk to have new adventure, make new friends, your life will be boring.
Yoong worked as an illustrator in the advertising sector for more than 20 years.
He started thinking about involving in meaningful deeds in his retirement life when some of his friends and relatives passed away, one after another. Yoong started to have more outdoor activities and even managed to get an eco-tourism tour guide licence. This paved the way for him to tour the world by riding bicycle.
“I wish to live life to the fullest. I hope I get to travel, explore and feel the real things. The world is so beautiful. I do not wish to leave this world before I tour the world,’’ he said.
Besides fulfilling his dream, he wrote to World Vision expressing his wish to partner with the organisation so that the funds raised from his travel would be used as education fund to assist children throughout the world.
When he was in India, Yoong visited three community development projects carried out by the World Vision to understand how to help the children in India. He personally experienced the poverty in rural areas of India.
“In India, having an autistic child would be deemed as unfortunate and being cursed. World Vision is there to instil the right concept for the parents and help the children,” he said.
“Whether one is saving the environment, raising fund for underprivileged children or cancer patient, I believe one can perform good deeds using his hobby,’’ he said.
Due to some reason, his plan to travel for two years stopped after 11 months.
As he targeted to raise RM80,000 (US$19,138.76) but only raised RM14,000 (US$3,349) so far, he decided to sell some of the photographs taken by him during his travel to continue the fund-raising project.
The public can buy photographs taken by him at RM150 (US$35.88) per photograph where RM130 (US$31) would be donated to World Vision in Malaysia. Some of the photographs are exhibited at the Studio Café in Kuala Lumpur.
Yoong would be sharing his travel experience in two sessions at the Studio Café at 10.30am and 2pm respectively on 1 March.
For more details please contact Yoong at 019-664-7002 or visit the website https://www.worldvision.com.my/peter-yoong-with-love-i-ride。
