On April 27, Jeremy Bally, a graduate of the University of Victoria, will set out on a 9,547 kilometre bike ride across Canada to raise money and awareness for West Papua, a province of Indonesia which covers the western peninsula of the island of New Guinea. Bally grew up on Bowen and left to further his education at the age of 17. After a friend convinced him to join a group at university called Rights and Democracy, Bally came up with the idea to combine his pleasure of story-telling with his enthusiasm for riding.
In the spirit of raising awareness Bally prepared a performance in order to tell the story through music and theatre of West Papua and the difficult challenges indigenous Papuans face everyday. Human rights violations, military occupation and environmental exploitation are all parts of the story Bally intends to perform along the way.Mile zero starts in Victoria, BC and, 121 days later, his journey will end in St John's Newfoundland.
To prepare, Bally spent three months touring, interviewing and learning the language in West Papua.
Bally experienced the tension first hand, "It was stressful, I got robbed once. They took my phone that had recordings of interviews on it. I transferred the recordings, deleting them afterwards, but I had two files left that included names and locations.They could catch me and deport me but the people who I had interviewed could go to jail for talking to me. I default into trusting people (a legacy from living on Bowen),which sometimes leads me into trouble like getting my phone stolen - but I'd rather be trusting," says Bally. While interviewing people he would ask them all the same question, "What are your hopes for the future?" and the response was always the same, "Freedom!"
So how did Bally go from growing up on Bowen to riding across Canada for human rights? He attributes much of this to his up-bringing and the island culture, " I feel totally dedicated to the ride because of my parents. They have normalized the concepts of sharing and community, basically thinking outside of yourself. It's having a community mind and I'm very grateful to them for bringing me up this way".
As part of his journey across Canada, Bally will perform on Bowen at the Gallery at Artisan Square on Tuesday, May 1, at 7 p.m. The money raised will go towards English language scholarships for West Papua community leaders.Donations can be made at http://pedalling.westpapua.ca.
