By CHRISTI C. BABBITT
Brigham Young University students Tyler de Waal and Billy Jackson are spending their summer break running across America, raising awareness of human rights violations and collecting donations along the way.
Hoping to generate funds for educating young Tibetan refugees and building a school in Ethiopia, the two 23-year-olds began their run April 26 in San Francisco. They plan to end their journey Aug. 9 at a human rights rally in Washington, D.C.
Their trip’s financial goal is to raise $1 million.
“There are so many places where human rights are being abused,” de Waal said while the pair rested at the intersection of State Street and Center Street in Orem on Tuesday. “We use Tibet as our main example because that’s our area of expertise.”
Both men spent their childhood living in various Asian and African nations, witnessing first-hand the abuses and struggles of refugees and the poor. After meeting each other during their first year at BYU, the men formed a nonprofit organization called the Relief Alliance and have been fund raising ever since.
De Waal and Jackson have already visited Tibet and given donations to the “government in exile,” or leaders of the approximately 120,000 Tibetan refugees in northern India, de Waal said. Connection with these leaders was made through the Tibetan community in Utah, which the men also would like to support with some of the donations.
All the money raised during the run will be hand-delivered to the people who need it, they said, with the majority going to Tibetan refugees. Jackson made contacts in Ethiopia while doing an internship with the United States Agency for International Development.
So far, they’ve only raised $1,000 but said people are taking them more seriously now that they’ve run about 1,000 miles.
The men are leapfroging their way across the land, with one running three miles and then driving the truck while the other runs. Running six days a week and averaging a total of 30 miles a day, they insist they are not outstanding athletes.
“When I first came up with this idea, I organized it for someone else,” Jackson said. Planning for the run has been going on for two years.
Two anonymous supporters are covering the men’s travel costs; they sleep in the back of a pickup truck. “We’re living on a shoestring, but we have enough,” Jackson said.
The men’s wives, Sarah Jackson and Amelia de Waal, will be waiting for their husbands’ return in their Orem homes.
For more information about the run or to donate, visit www.reliefalliance.org.
Christi C. Babbitt can be reached at 344-2552 or cbabbitt@heraldextra.com.
This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A4.
