Pictured (from left to right): Some of the excited visually impaired Ethembeni School learners that will be participating in the 35km fun ride this year – Sandile Manana, Langelihle Buthelezi and Edris Mahlanga who will be accompanied by Marhaux d’Hangest d’Voy (absent) and far right, tandem rider Sibusiso Zondo who will be riding with Natasja Foster (absent), a volunteer from Hillcrest.
The Ethembeni School for Visually Impaired and Physically Disabled Children, which is on the Tsogo Sun Amashova route will once again be participating in the Tsogo Sun Amashova Durban Classic 35km race on Sunday, October 12th in order 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, who raise 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 and includes one junior para –partially sighted cyclist and one blind junior cyclist on a tandem who will be riding the 35km and around 7 hand cyclists, with some participating in the 65km and the majority cycling the 35km.
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 says, “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 Monteseal or riding along Durban’s beachfront.
This will be Sibusiso Zondo first time participating in a race and it will be the first time the school has entered a tandem team. Ethembeni thank all volunteers for giving up their time to train and ride with the learners who are eagerly awaiting the big day!
To find out more about the school or the charity project visit www.ethembenischool.co.za and www.givengain.com