Children cycle for children
DAINFERN - Children participated in a bicycle race, raising funds to empower their less fortunate peers in rural and underprivileged areas.
The Dainfern Fun Day raised R10 000 for Qhubeka’s Bicycle Education Empowerment Programme (Beep) and saw about 75 children participating on 7 September.
All proceeds from the race went to Beep, which provides bicycles to enable children to get to school in areas where public transport is limited or non-existent.
Qhubeka – which means ‘to progress’ in the Nguni language – not only changes lives by giving people access to the opportunities that come with increased mobility, but strives to uplift communities through incentives as well.
The organisation exchanges bicycles for work done to improve communities, the environment or academic results. School children sign a two-year contract committing to increase their school attendance and marks. At the end of this period, if the children have upheld their contracts, they will be allowed to keep their bicycles.
Qhubeka is the South African programme for World Bicycle Relief, an American non-profit organisation that uses bicycles to transform individual lives and communities. Since 2005, World Bicycle Relief has trained more than 1 100 field mechanics and provided over 170 000 specially designed, locally assembled quality bicycles to disaster survivors, healthcare workers, students and entrepreneurs in the developing world.
Details: www.qhubeka.org; www.worldbicyclerelief.org
