Pinoy teen in Holland walks 160 kms to help orphans in PHL

Kyle Baleva, a 15-year-old Filipino, joined "Walk of the World" in The Netherlands from July 17 to 20, covering 160 kilometers in four days, to help orphaned Filipino children in the Philippines. Baleva is traversing the cities of Elst, Wijchen, Groesbeek and Cuijk in the western part of the Netherlands through the four-day "Nijmegen Marches" to raise funds for the Children's Rehabilitation Center's (CRC) "A Hand for an Orphan" program.

 

The four-day marches is on its 96th run this year. The annual event is participated in by about 45,000 hikers. Participants walk a distance of 30, 40, or 50 kilometers every day. Many hikers -- individually or in groups -- commit to this march to raise money for charity.

 

Kyle is walking 40 kilometers per day for a total of 160 kilometers in four days. This is an improvement from his performance in the previous years when he used to walk 30 kilometers per day. Walking eight hours a day During the Walk of the World, Baleva woke up around 4:00 or 5:00 a.m. everyday to walk with his father Boyen. He walked at an average of five kilometers per hour (kph) for eight hours everyday. While the rainy weather in The Netherlands has not been very "helpful" to his cause, the teen gets much needed support from family and friends, who encourage him through social media  and private messages.

 

According to his mother Angie, "Kyle trained hard for this walk. As he turned 15 last year, he took the challenge of taking the normal adult distance in this year's walk. He trained hard for this, also hoping to get more sponsors for the orphans back home (in the Philippines)."

 

Healing orphaned children  

CRC's "A Hand for an Orphan" program supports children who were orphaned because their parents have disappeared or died due to various human rights violations. Aside from giving psycho-social support to children and their families to help them overcome the trauma they have experienced, the CRC also visits different far-flung areas of the Philippines where there are intensive military operations and high incidences of human rights violations. 

The amount collected through Kyle's Walk in the previous years provided:

Sponsorship is encouraged until mid-August when the Baleva family expects to send the money to the CRC. The family maintains a website where the sponsorship details and updates about Kyle's Walk are reported. Donations are accepted until August. His route can also be followed through the website: http://4dfollowme.nl/ (fill-in his participant's number 40G461 in the field that says loopnummer van deelnemer and click on wandelaar zoeken). - VVP, GMA News