Velo-city 2018 article series featuring mini interviews on plenary speakers continue with the founders of Aromeiazero.

We take a closer look at the conference’s 6^th plenary, Advocacy for Inclusion, taking place at Velo-city 2018 Rio de Janeiro, on the 14th June 2018. We discussed with the two of the speakers, Murilo Casagrande and Cadu Ronca on their expectations and thoughts about Velo-city 2018 Rio.

Murilo Casagrande and Cadu Ronca are the founders of Aromeiazero, an organization that promotes the bicycle as an instrument of social, cultural and personal transformation. The bicycle is seen as a democratic tool for citizen empowerment, used to break paradigms and bring autonomy, freedom and happiness for everyone who relates to the bicycle. Aromeiazero promotes the bicycle as an instrument of social transformation and has had its experience presented in the Velo-city of 2017 in the Netherlands and in the World Bicycle Forum in Peru in 2018.

In 2013, Murilo and Cadu launched "Bike Café", a coffee brand committed to promoting a better quality of life in the city, which gives away 10% of its sales for the Aromeiazero Institute. Despite the advances in São Paulo, Murilo believes that the great challenges for more humane cities and for all have just begun.  Cadu, cofounder and director of Aromeiazero Institute and BIKE CAFÉ business on wheels, is working in the socio-environmental area for more than 15 years and believes that the bicycle is a powerful tool for social transformation and uses it as his main transport vehicle.

A quick chat with Murilo Casagrande and Cadu Ronka:

• What does Access to Life mean to you?

I think it means almost the opposite of surviving. That is, no matter who you are or where you are from, people must have the right to the removal of various types of constraints that leave them with little choice and little opportunity of exercising their desires and needs.

• What cycling lessons are you bringing to Rio?

That the bicycle is one of the most powerful and accessible tools for social transformation. 

• What are you looking forward to the most at Velo-city 2018?

To feel the atmosphere and being able to contribute to social change in the most important bicycle event of the world. 

• What do you think is the added value of a global interdisciplinary approach to cycling?

 The bicycle (even more than cycling) is a very interdisciplinary vehicle/tool because it can help to address a very wide range of problems (mobility, health, environment, income generation, city democratization); when you see all these possibilities in a bicycle working together, you realize how powerful this object is to promote sustainable development.

• What will you visit by bike in Rio?

I'm planning to use the bicycle as my means of transportation during the Velo-city, so I can stop easily during the routes and enjoy the vibrant city that is Rio.  

The Advocacy for Inclusion Plenary Session is scheduled for Day 3 of Velo-city 2018; Thursday 14^th June 2018 at 16.40-17.40.

More on the Velo-city 2018 Programme here.

Registrations are now open! Register now here.

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