Riverlea: Getting VUIL at the Horseshoe retirement village
Bikers with a purpose.
The retirement village in Horseshoe, Riverlea were visited by a group of bikers who go by the name of VUIL for a little upliftment and a good home cooked meal.
A day filled with a lot of laughter and a whole lot of hard work from the bikers. The squad stands for Voluntary, Upliftment, Improving Lives, last Saturday they painted three units, fed the entire village, provided each unit with a food hamper worth R750, brought clothing for the seniors, cleaned the three units and they took out the three residents to Wimpy for breakfast.
VUIL did not only paint but they also fixed damaged ceilings, built cupboards and bought two new beds for the needed units. This was all made possible by the biker’s monthly contribution, their co-financial company Rotary International and other outside sponsors.
“Basically, we are different bikers from different clubs so we are not a club. As you know that bikers have always been involved in a lot of charities and giving back to the community. Now how we started was that there was a Whatsapp group chat with various bikers from various clubs just speaking about their daily lives and making jokes and stuff.
Late November, early December the group got together and we decided let’s do something for our community. We started off with the word “VUIL” because it was just something funny to say but we didn’t actually see that God has guided us to do something else. And this planted by God,” said the PR manager Garth Mokoily.
The crew started their first project at the Newclare Flats last year December when they had given the children a Christmas day. They provided the children with hot dogs and new toys. From then VUIL committed to doing one house, one family for 12 months.
According to Nizar Petersen, VUIL looks after 40 households on a monthly basis, however, in the month of Ramadan, the Muslim community donated so much that VUIL was able to provide every unit with food hampers as well as 150 families outside of the village.
“We all bikers and being a biker is a very risky hobby, it’s dangerous, we’ve buried so many of our friends, there’s many of us who came off bikes accident, we believe in keeping that lifestyle clean, we believe that we have to give back to our communities,” said Petersen.
The chairman of the horseshoe retirement village Ebraham Toffie said: “I want to thank all of the sponsors and everyone who comes in here as families to assist us. Nizar Petersen and the other bikers, God bless them in abundance, they really are doing a good job here. We thank them for lunch and the Wimpy breakfast.”
“The government is doing nothing for us, we not black enough now, we were not white enough then. It’s our own people who are living like this and we can’t accept it so we go into areas and try and uplift those people’s lives,” said Petersen.
The group consists of about 23 members who are all passionate about helping the community. VUIL has only been 6 months in existence, yet they’ve touched so many lives already.
If you would like to join the crew you can contact Nazir Petersen on 083Â 235 6738, Colin Witbooi on 082Â 854 8080 or Glen Davis on 062Â 662 5083.
Related stories:
