Kyocera sponsors aids awareness expedition 2008 – cape2cape

Joachim Franz at press conference

24 July 2008
Kyocera Mita has announced the launch of the spectacular mountain climbing expedition cape2cape, to help raise awareness in the worldwide fight against HIV/AIDS. The disease remains a vital global issue affecting millions of people and Kyocera Mita believes it is important to continue to promote awareness of HIV/AIDS internationally.

Led by adventurer and endurance athlete Joachim Franz, the cape2cape team will scale 18 mountains in nine weeks, starting with the North Cape in Norway and finishing with the South Cape in South Africa. At each summit, Team Joachim Franz will raise an HIV/AIDS awareness flag emblazoned with hard hitting, inspirational images and facts about the disease.
As well as raising flags, Team Joachim Franz will also be organising a series of press events in each country visited to actively remind people that HIV/AIDS is still very much a global problem, impacting European and African countries alike.

Kyocera Mita is a proud sponsor of cape2cape, and will be providing the project with essential financial support. As part of the sponsorship, the team’s tour bus and equipment will bear the Kyocera Mita logo and a Kyocera colour printer will be with the team to produce all relevant documents. But the involvement is going much deeper than this: Kyocera Mita is making an international commitment to this global challenge, with its offices in the many countries along the route getting involved to raise awareness of the project and even take part themselves.

Wayne Holborn, General Manager at Kyocera Mita South Africa, adds: “We are proud that our European offices are getting involved with this fantastic campaign, helping support Team Joachim Franz on the actual expedition, or by getting involved organising events to promote the trip and the larger issue of HIV/AIDS. We have been a long-standing partner of Team Joachim Franz supporting his former feats such as the 23,0000 km mountain biking expedition across Panamerica and the AIDS Awareness Tour across Germany in 2007, when together with our partners we could contribute more than 15,000 Euro to the campaign. Team Joachim Franz are long-standing activists promoting the awareness of AIDS/HIV.”

Cape2cape will commence on October, 8th 2008 at North Cape in Norway and will end in Kapstadt, South Africa on December, 1st, 2008 – this year’s World Aids Day. There are 18 people in Team Joachim who will be engaging in the global expedition.