four friends go to Sète by bike to raise awareness about sickle cell disease
“We would like to give visibility to this disease”, explains Jean-Philippe. Four friends set themselves a personal challenge: rally Toulouse to Sète by bike. But for that’s not all. Starting from a personal initiative, the four cyclists wanted to combine business with pleasure. To mark the occasion, the four friends will leave on behalf of the association Drepa 31, this Saturday 27 and Sunday 28 August. The objective: to raise awareness of the genetic disease, the sickle cell disease.
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20,000 patients in France
But what is the sickle cell disease ? It is an inherited blood disease. The latter is recognized because the red blood cells of patients are in the shape of a sickle or a crescent. The disease affects more than 20,000 people fr France according to the association Drepa 31 which explains that the sickle cell disease is the first genetic disease in the world, “but still unknown”. It is for this reason that Jean-Philippe and his friends wish to raise awareness of the disease.
Contacted by The Independent Opinionthe cyclist says: “I’m from Guadeloupe, I’ve been on Toulouse. And I haven’t heard of this disease since I’ve been in France. However, the sickle cell disease is a disease that affects a good part of the Afro-Caribbean population. But with the crossbreeding today, it’s starting to get mixed up a bit”.
Toulouse-Sète by bike
The idea comes from Jean-Philippe, he wanted to do this personal challenge with his three friends, Rémy, Stéphane and Christophe. Then the idea of transforming it into a charitable action came to him:
At the base with friends, I had proposed to do this route between Toulouse and Sète by bike. And it turns out that it came naturally to link business with pleasure. We knew members of the Drépa 31 association and during a conversation, I told them about my project. So we offered them this trip to raise awareness of the genetic disease of sickle cell disease,” says Jean-Philippe.
Armed then with t-shirts with the logo of the association Drepa 31the four friends will set off from Toulouse towards Sete. The trip will take place in two stages:
On Saturdays, partly at 7 a.m. from my house. We give an appointment to the members of the association at 7:20 am at the Demoiselles bridge. And then, on a part towards Capestang, for a distance of 180 km. And the next day, on the part of Capestang for Sète. That’s a total of 260 km. Over two days, that’s a lot, but we’ve been preparing for it since the beginning of the summer”.
T-shirts in the name of the association. © Drepa 31
How to support them?
Asked by many people, the four friends would prefer to propose a challenge n°2 next year: “Here, it’s challenge n°1, which says number 1, means n°2. We would like to do it again the next year, but work better because here it started from nothing. Other people could join us”.
In the meantime, it is possible to support the association through a call for donations. The latter is possible in lines. The determined donations could then be used to operate Drepa 31 or in research against disease.