Sweet community project benefits learners
The initiative which started in 2019 seeks to target different schools every year, and aims to bring mobility to pupils in schools across the Ugu District.
Restoring hope and giving back has been the theme for most of 2021 thus far, and it was no different as the Sweetbikes Project made its way to Gcilima last Thursday.
Mashesha Junior Secondary School and Mbambi High School received donations of 20 bicycles each, for the underprivileged children who often have to walk long distances to school.
“Our aim is to bring hope to the children. We can see the number of crimes that are happening around the country with the dropout rate, people becoming unemployed, the poverty, so today was to bring hope early in the year,” said Ayanda Masengemi, project director of the Sweetbikes Project.
The initiative which started in 2019 seeks to target different schools every year, and aims to bring mobility to pupils in schools across the Ugu District.
So far, over 1900 bikes have been donated throughout the South Coast.
“We dealt with a lot of schools in different communities and then we got input on issues that the schools are facing. One of them was that the children were walking long distances to school. Some were walking up to two to three hours per day, back and forth just to get to school,” said Samuel Wenger, a member of the Sweetdale founding family.
“These challenges see some children dropping out, or a decreased level of attendance and that of course brings a lot of negative things. So we wanted to make a change,” added Mr Wenger.
The project purchases the bikes mostly from Europe, and imports them to the skills centre at Sweetdale Camp in Margate.
Many of the bikes are repaired and donated to underprivileged schools.
Although the Sweetbikes Project has only been running since 2019, the skills centre was established in 2016, and is focused on training the youth in different life skills.
“Thanks to all the funders who have helped us so far. I also want to emphasise that when you do good things, good results come back, and let us help each other. Let us not only rely on the government, but we as individuals can also do something instead of only complaining about the situation the rural areas,” said Mr Masengeni.
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