Ride focuses funds, awareness on youth

Almost 180 people raised more than $2 million cycling in this year’s Hawaiian Ride for Youth, which ran last week around the State.

Four separate contingents of riders started out on March 26; three groups from Albany and one from Jurien Bay.

The three Albany groups stopped at many schools across the South West to discuss youth mental health with students.

These schools included Pemberton District High School, Manjimup Senior High School, Boyup Brook District High School and Bridgetown High School.

Youth Focus South West clinical lead Mark Barrett-Lennard said the event was a great way of discussing mental health related issues in WA schools.

“They have all been training for about six months and are committed to fundraising for Youth Focus,” he said.

“All money raised from this event goes towards suicide prevention for young people.”

He said many of the riders took a week out of their lives to take part in the event and had trained at least three days a week.

“Collectively they all ride about 8000km in training before the actual event,” Mr Barrett-Lennard said. “We had a wide age range commit to this type of training, from people in their 20s right the way through to people in their 60s.”

Throughout the event the riders stopped at various schools to discuss mental health related topics with students.

“We get the riders up there to explain to students what the event is all about and why they are taking part,” Mr Barrett-Lennard said.

“Then we usually have one rider talk about why suicide prevention for young people is so important.”

All groups completed their ride on Saturday at Kings Park in Perth after visiting almost 30 schools collectively.