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<\/a>His passion talking about the organization makes sense, given his history with it. After Pakistan was hit with an earthquake in 2007, Cheema volunteered to work with SOS doing fundraising at his school and delivering items to children.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat experience was what got me started and motivated me to do more,\u201d he says. \u201cAll the children rely on donations and help from the community, so when you go there and take the donations and food and clothes, they were really happy and excited to see us. I saw firsthand what it was like there, and I wanted to do something for those kids.\u201d<\/p>\n
And the organization is happy to have Cheema spreading the word. SOS Children\u2019s Villages Canada communication manager Graeme Burk says that Cheema is \u201cwonderfully surprising.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe started out in Victoria hardly ever having ridden a bike and he\u2019s continued across the country, spreading the word about SOS Children\u2019s Villages wherever he goes,\u201d says Burk. \u201cWe\u2019re delighted with how he\u2019s connected with Canadians and provided them with the means to look outside themselves to the needs of others abroad.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cheema says that motivation to do the cycling trip hit him when he got to thinking how many people talk about their future plans and what they hope to do \u201csomeday.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was this thing in my mind\u0143\u2018There is no someday.\u2019 We all keep planning to do this, and, \u2018Someday I\u2019ll do this.\u2019 But there\u2019s only today,\u201d he says. \u201cWe have to go and get started, and things will work out.\u201d<\/p>\n
And, indeed, his trip has so far worked out, despite hitting a very serious snag in Winnipeg. Cheema left his bike and belongings unattended while he went into a restaurant, and someone made off with them. Bike company Cannondale donated a new bike to his cause and UVic helped him pay for his other belongings.<\/p>\n
The resulting media attention helped him raise $2,000 while he was in Winnipeg for SOS.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven with my bike being stolen, I was for sure upset at first, but I knew that I was determined, I knew I was not going to quit, I was going to continue,\u201d he says. \u201cI knew even if I had to stand with a jar asking people for money\u00c9 I didn\u2019t contact any media. The police sent out a media release and then I had all these people calling me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cheema, who has been averaging 150 to 200 kilometres a day, says that the whole experience has been extremely satisfying, and adds that doing something with other people in mind is something he\u2019s very happy about.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith careers and studying and everything, I feel like everything we do in our lives, there\u2019s some sort of self-motivation behind it,\u201d he says. \u201cBut this one thing I wanted to do purely not for myself, so 20 to 30 years from now I can look back and be proud of myself for something I did. I made a difference in the world because of my existence here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cheema\u2019s end destination is St. John\u2019s, Newfoundland, at which point he\u2019ll turn around and start cycling back to get home for the start of his classes at UVic in September.<\/p>\n
But Cheema will return a new man, with a new understanding of self… and with huge calf muscles to boot.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m really happy,\u201d he says. \u201cEvery night I sleep with satisfaction, knowing that I\u2019m making a difference out there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When Anas Cheema arrived in Canada two years ago, he had no idea what he was in store for. In that short time, Cheema has gone to Camosun, transferred to UVic, and, in June of this year, embarked on a cross-Canada cycling trip to raise money for charity. This, from a guy who didn\u2019t even […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7412,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,108],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-august-14-2013"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7411"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7411\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7526,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7411\/revisions\/7526"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}