AECOM Impact Blog: Philanthropic Adventures Across Peru and India Empower AECOM Employee
Julian Buttigieg, an environmental scientist at AECOM, discusses volunteering for two 3,000-kilometer (1,864-mile) trips across Peru and India to benefit The Brains Trust and Rotary International, respectively.
Many weird and wonderful doors and opportunities have opened for me since 2010 after I participated in Rotary International’s “Rotary Youth Leadership Award” (RYLA) program. RYLA, which is designed to promote proactivity as well as personal and professional development of Australian youth, has been a driving force, empowering me and my two friends Glen Gorton (RYLA 2009) and Andrew Nolan (RYLA 2011) to be ambitious in achieving our personal goals.
In September 2013, we entered an event called the Rickshaw Run, where we successfully drove 3,000 kilometers (1,864 miles) across India in a “7-horsepower glorified lawnmower,” or more commonly referred to as an Auto-Rickshaw or tuk tuk. We formed “The Brains Trust,” with the main objective of competing in the Rickshaw Run to raise awareness and funding for research into the debilitating neurological disorder called Dystonia. Helping Andrew’s mother, Lee, who is a Dystonia sufferer herself, was a key driver behind our willingness to complete the challenge. Over AU$11,000 was raised by The Brains Trust in 2013, and donated to The Brain Foundation.
After returning from India, our desire to help others was not quite satisfied. An opportunity arose to compete in another adventure, and this time we decided to pay forward our gratitude to the RYLA program. We set a goal to raise as much money as possible to sponsor young adults to attend the upcoming week-long RYLA seminar in January 2015.
The new adventure was called the Mototaxi Junket, where participants were required to travel up to 3,000 kilometers across Peru in an unreliable, underpowered Peruvian Lifan 150-cc mototaxi, or sofa-bike. Reforming under the name RIDE FOR RYLA, we had mixed success in completing our Peru challenge.
This time around, we weren’t so lucky with our vehicle. We were gifted a lemon, and it just couldn’t handle what we were asking of it. It was extremely slow and in attempting to make up for lost time, we had to drive at night down mountain passes in the pouring rain on roads with no guardrails and sheer drops into valleys below. We ended up accumulating rainwater in our fuel tank as the fuel cap didn’t seal properly. These are just some of the problems we had before we decided enough was enough. We also slept on someone’s garage floor one night as the town we finished up in had no available accommodation.
We managed to ride 5 days and approximately 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) across coastal desert, the Andes mountain range, and over the other side into the Amazon before having to transport our tired vehicle via truck close to the finish line due to constant mechanical issues.
Despite the Mototaxi Junket not going as well as we had hoped, the ultimate objective to sponsor youth to attend RYLA was achieved with enough funds raised to sponsor at least 21 young adults to attend RYLA at a cost of AU$500 per person. Before leaving for Peru, RIDE FOR RYLA had been guest speaking at over 20 Rotary Clubs in an attempt to raise the money and profile of the RYLA program, and we were fortunate enough to connect with and meet Rotarians in Lima, Peru.
AECOM has invested in sponsoring at least two of its young Queensland graduates to attend RYLA, with hopefully more showing interest in attending.
Check out more blog posts on social responsibility on the AECOM Impact blog!
About AECOM
With nearly 100,000 employees — including architects, engineers, designers, planners, scientists and management and construction services professionals — serving clients in more than 150 countries around the world following the acquisition of URS, AECOM is a premier, fully integrated infrastructure and support services firm. AECOM is ranked as the #1 engineering design firm by revenue in Engineering News-Record magazine’s annual industry rankings. The company is a leader in all of the key markets that it serves, including transportation, facilities, environmental, energy, oil and gas, water, high-rise buildings and government. AECOM provides a blend of global reach, local knowledge, innovation and technical excellence in delivering solutions that create, enhance and sustain the world’s built, natural and social environments. A Fortune 500 company, AECOM companies, including URS Corporation and Hunt Construction Group, had revenue of approximately $19.5 billion during the 12 months ended Sept. 30, 2014. More information on AECOM and its services can be found at www.aecom.com.
Media:
AECOM Technology Corporation
Ed Mayer, +1.732.564.3380
Director, Corporate Communications
Ed.Mayer@aecom.com
