“Bright Future for Children”

Drive to give. “Kees” and “Bien” have built their own purpose to take them through the desert and push them through the mighty challenges of the Dakar as the money they collect from sponsors does not only help them put their old Citroën CX up to speed for Saudi Arabia but mostly serves to support Bright future for children in Senegal, the cradle of the most infamous rally raid. After years of adventures on their own and with their children, the Kamps took on the Dakar for the first time in 2022, successfully bringing their car all the way to the finish in the Classic before 1986 category despite many mechanical setbacks in the desert. For their second participation, they’ve upgraded their Citroën CX to give their charitable ambitions the best odds.

K.K.: “We want to try to finish the Dakar again. Last year, we had a few problems with the car. It’s an old Citroën, not really made for desert racing, but we tried to prepare it better this year and hopefully we’ll get through the Dakar even better than we did last year.
We love the history of the Dakar. Last year we were lucky to meet the three surviving pilots who drove the Paris-Dakar in 1981 with a Citroen CX: Patrick Lapie, Jean Paul Luc and Jackie Ickx! After the race our car will go to the Visscher Classique museum.
We donate part of the money from our sponsors to the same project we supported last year. It’s a Dutch organisation called Bright future for children. They support education in remote areas in Senegal. We’ve known them from a long time. We’ve been in Senegal a few times to donate a car and to help. I think this is one of the purest forms of helping people in Africa.”


B.K.: “Schooling is one of the best things you can offer kids. We know the people driving this project so we know every euro goes straight to helping. With the money we gave them last year, about 3.500 euros, Bright future for children were able to finish building a classroom and they have extra educational material for the teachers to use.
We think it is very special and rewarding to do the Dakar as a married couple. We got into the Dakar adventure because of our love for travelling in the desert. With the same Citroen CX we use for the Dakar Classic we traveled together through West-Africa.
Last year, we went with normal tyres and we suffered nine punctures, and each one takes time. We have better tyres now. Citroen CX is also a low car with a very long exhaust pipe that we changed. And we had a leak in the fuel tank so we lost it all in the middle of the desert. We managed to fix it and now our tank is made of aluminium.”