Foreign nurses ride autos from Jaisalmer for a cause

Alappuzha: While three women travel bloggers last year bravely drove an autorickshaw for about 3000 km from Jaisalmer in Rajasthan to Kochi, to raise funds for their initiative of bringing potable water to rural India, this year, a three-member team of western nurses….‘Kickin’ It Sari Style’… kicked off their  journey on January 1. They will reach Kochi in two weeks.  

The three nurses, Kristine MacMillan from Canada, Jennifer Crane from America and Sacha Moreland from Kiwi, came together in the last week of December in Jaisalmer. Kristine and Jennifer got to know each other while working at the University of Washington in Seattle in 2007. In 2010, Kristine took a job in Saudi Arabia as a VIP nurse where she met Sacha.

The aim of their run is to raise $ 1500 and the funds will be donated to New Light,  a non-profit community development project and charitable trust based in Kalighat, Kolkata, for the safety of Indian woman. According to their blog, “as women who have grown up in western countries, we have been born into freedom that most women in the world have not enjoyed.

This is always apparent to us when we leave the comforts of our first world homes. In light of the recent events involving women both in India and at home, we decided to go for a cause  that would directly benefit women”.

The Rickshaw Run has been sponsored by Intrepid Travel, a travel agent in India. Kristine says the inspiration for doing the Rickshaw Run was Sacha, who had done  the  Run along with two of her travel blogger friends - Kim and Hannah last January.