Kyocera sponsors aids awareness expedition 2008 – cape2cape

14 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.

Reinhold Schlierkamp, Director Kyocera Mita Europe, 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 230,000 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 Cape Town, 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.

Kyocera Mita
Kyocera Mita is one of the world's leading office document solutions companies. The product range consists of printers, multifunctional systems, wide format devices, parts, supplies and efficient office output solutions. Kyocera Mita provides innovative products with superior printer controllers, built on a foundation of long-life components, allowing it to offer its customers low total cost of ownership and high efficiency in any workplace. For further information, visit: www.kyoceramita-europe.com

Kyocera Mita Corporation is a wholly owned daughter company of Kyocera Corporation. Ranked no. 491 among the BusinessWeek most valuable Global 1200 companies, Kyocera Corporation is a leading manufacturer of high-tech ceramics, electronic components, solar cells, and electronic office equipment. Kyocera Corporation’s long-term growth strategy is to focus on business that supports telecommunications and information processing, environmental protection and the preservation of quality of life.


Background
To make the threat posed by the immune deficiency syndrome AIDS plain to see for people around the world, Joachim Franz seven years ago set up the aids awareness expedition. On mountain bikes in the Sahara and South Africa, on crampons in the perpetual ice of Kyrgyzstan and the Andes, or in traveling the entire length of the legendary Panamerican Highway by bicycle, these extraordinary expeditions always pursue the same objective – to draw attention to and generate sympathy for the international war on AIDS.

In “cape2cape” Franz and his team have this year set themselves the task of climbing 18 peaks around the world in nine weeks, including on October 16, 2008 the Zugspitze in Germany. Their starting point is the North Cape in Norway and their final destination the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. On each peak the Joachim Franz team will hoist an HIV/AIDS flag with vivid and informative images and facts about the immune deficiency syndrome. Joachim Franz is thereby calling on heads of government, royalty and politicians, businessmen and ordinary people everywhere to face up to this international challenge.

 Here you get to the Cape 2 Cape online-diary.