MIEW (Music Industry East to West) Rides is pleased to announce the successful completion of the third annual MIEW ride. Despite a bit of drama and a small amount of blood, everybody made it home safe. And, for the first time, fundraising broke the £10,000 barrier!
With generous support from Sound On Sound, alongside a number of other stellar industry sponsors, in Autumn 2014 an intrepid group of music industry professionals took on a 225-mile ride across Brittany: a weekend of sun, gravel, impact and achievement to raise crucial funds for In Tune for Life, a UK charity helping change lives through music.
In Tune for Life is currently working in a nine-month partnership with the Baylor College of Medicine Children’s Foundation in Lilongwe, Malawi, using the talent of local artists to support crucial work counselling newly-diagnosed HIV patients. Malawi is home to 910,000 people living with HIV, and although medicine is free there, because of low staff numbers and the large number of patients, nurses lack the time to provide critical information and counselling to patients. ITFL is helping fill the gap by developing music and video materials that medical staff can use to provide counselling before and after HIV testing.
Giles Orford, representative for MIEW rides and Marketing Director at Focusrite, is already planning MIEW 2015 in Ireland, from Rosslare on the east coast to Bantry Bay on the west:
“I, and a number of other riders look forward to the MIEW ride each year, which has now become somewhat of an annual event. It’s great to be doing something we love, for a cause we believe in, working with a charity we know can make a difference and ever increasing sponsorship, long may it continue.”
Giles has even bigger plans for next year. “In 2015 we’ll build on the concept of MIEW Spirit Rides. We’ve got colleagues in the USA and elsewhere who can’t join us in Ireland, but they want to support ITFL. So they’ll ride with us in spirit, covering the most challenging distances they can manage over the same weekend and raising money alongside us. We’re going global!”
This year, with riders’ individual sponsorship efforts boosting the support of some of the industry’s coolest companies, over £10,000 was raised to help empower artists around the world to improve the health of poor communities through music and video.
To find out more about MIEW Rides and join a growing community, visit the http://www.facebook.com/miewrides
If you’re interested in taking part in 2015, be swift! Limited to 15 core riders, MIEW2015 will run from September 4 to September 7, 2015 and is expected to fill up quickly. Simply contact giles.orford@miew-rides.org
Interested in sponsoring this year’s riders? The site is still open for donations…
