Kumar rides bike from Oregon to Washington, D.C. for fundraiser
Having grown up very poor in India, Naresh Kumar witnessed people being exploited and taken advantage of often. He recalled an unfortunate instance in Nepal in 2014.
“It was the middle of the night, so a man approached me soliciting an offer for drugs, but when I said ‘No’ and walked away, he was also offering how many girls I wanted for the night,” Kumar said. “He was taking pride in age groups. He said he had some of the youngest in the group, and he can bring them to my motel.
“It just felt almost like GrubHub. Instead of somebody delivering food, here it’s a vulnerable child or a human life that is being sold on the market. That was one of the main moving moments in my life that I noticed where a human being was being sold as a slave on streets, especially in this case, as a vulnerable human being, be it a woman or child.”
Seeing human trafficking and sex trafficking firsthand drove him to action. Kumar is a long-distance runner and cyclist and used his athleticism as the backbone for Freedom Seat: his nonprofit focused on raising awareness for and preventing human trafficking across the globe.
With support from Freedom Seat, Rotary Action Group Against Slavery (RAGAS), and 3Strands Global Foundation, Kumar rode on a tandem bike from Astoria, Oregon to Potomac, Maryland from May 19-June 22. He rode 3,485 miles in 34 days, enduring a snowstorm, hip-deep water due to flooding, 95 degree heat, and 20-30 mph winds at times.
Kumar drew the metaphor between a tandem bike and human trafficking because the person sitting in the back seat loses their freedom and submits to the driver. They are only able to pedal rather than steer, brake, or take control in any way. He said the empty seat also “denotes the need for a lot of people to join me and pedal with me to fight the anti-human trafficking cause together.”
Throughout this journey, he said he met the “nicest, kindest Americans,” specifically reminiscing on his time in Craig, Missouri.
“People just go above and beyond, and even the most poor people were the most generous people. The number of times your tab gets taken care of by the end of your meal because your waitress will know your story and tell all the other tables and somebody would offer to pick up your tab.
“There was this one tiny town that I went through, a farming town,” Kumar said. “Within 30 minutes, (the waitress) was able to collect almost $200 in donations from various tables after getting my meal taken care of, and the whole crew came out of the restaurant to wave and send me off. It’s a very humbling experience when you go through that. You don’t belong there. You just walked in hungry, starving, thirsty, completely covered in mud and tears, but then people really treat you with utmost kindness and love and hospitality. Every day was a stunning journey when you’re out there on the open road.”
All donations to Freedom Seat will raise funds for worldwide grants that go toward prevention and protection of children.
