Visually impaired learners ready for ‘shova
The Tsogo Sun Amashova Durban Classic Road Safety Bike Park gets visually impaired learners cycling.
THE Ethembeni School for Visually Impaired and Physically Disabled Children, which is on the Amashova route, will once again be participating in the Tsogo Sun Amashova Durban Classic 35km race on Sunday, 12 October to raise funds for the school through various projects including the fundraising vehicle “Givengain”.
Braam Mouton, principal of Ethembeni School and Chairman of Achilles South Africa, affiliated to Achilles International based in New York, which raises funds to take a team of disabled runners to compete in the New York City Marathon, is also actively involved in the Amashova and has cycled as a hand cyclist for Achilles KZN for a number of years.
This year, both Ethembeni and Achilles South Africa will be putting a team together which includes one junior para-partially sighted cyclist and one blind junior cyclist on a tandem. They will ride the 35km race along with seven hand cyclists, some of whom will take part in the 65km race and the rest will cycle the 35km race.
One of the charitable projects that Mouton and his team will be supporting through this year’s Tsogo Sun Amashova Durban Classic is the “Cycling-kilometres-for-Ethembeni-students”. The project looks at encouraging cyclists to adopt the cause by becoming an activist on the GivenGain website and then cycling on behalf of Ethembeni to help raise funds to equip the school’s library with books in braille.
Mouton said: “Thanks to the Amashova and their involvement in Ethembeni School, the event has built a Road Safety Bike Park at our school where groups of school children learn the rules of the road using a specially designed track and bicycles. This is run in conjunction with the Department of Transport programme for introducing road safety to learners at schools in Pietermaritzburg and Durban areas and is working well with a number of our learners.”
The learners from Ethembeni School have been training hard either by using the bike park, school gym on stationary bikes, riding the practice hills at Monteseel or riding along Durban’s beachfront.
To find out more about the school or the charity project visit www.ethembenischool.co.za and www.givengain.com
