KwaNobuhle residents are going green, using “blue bikes”, with hundreds of bicycles expected to be seen navigating the area by early next year – thanks to a sponsorship by the garden town’s biggest factory.
The first phase of Volkswagen’s (VW) 2019 Scholar Mobility and Community Policing Forum (CPF) Programme in Uitenhage saw LoveLife Ground Breakers, CPF and Neighbourhood Watch members as well as healthcare workers receive 50 Blue Bikes.
While an exact date is yet to confirmed, VW spokesman Andile Dlamini said a further 350 bicycles were expected to be delivered to pupils in the area by early 2019.
He said the programme formed part of a bigger project which saw VW partner with Qhubeka’s Blue Bikes six years ago to establish Bicycle Education Empowerment Programme (Beep).
And while all the recipients were grateful at last week’s handover, Motherwell residents Anele Ramabele, 35, and Madoda Ndlakuse, 36, will have some of the biggest impact, as recipients, assisting about 300 pupils in the area.
“We work with five schools in the area, grades one to three.
“And using the Nali’Bali supplement, we visit each school once a week and encourage reading for enjoyment through storytelling, setting up book clubs and so on,” Ramabele said.
“The bikes will help us so much because we used to walk from school to school – and it’s between 2km and 5km between them – so with quicker travel time it will increase contact time with pupils.”
VWSA managing director Thomas Schaefer said that over the past four years more than 4,000 Blue Bikes had been donated to children, healthcare workers and CPF members across South Africa – almost 1,000 in 2018.
’’The Blue Bikes will help empower LoveLife with a mechanism to mobilise its Ground Breakers to improve youth engagement and to drive specific strategic objectives of the LoveLife Centre in KwaNobuhle.
“It will improve the CPF volunteers’ ability to do visible security patrols in the community, and also enable healthcare workers to service more households and deliver more medicine,” he said.
“We will also implement a sustainable bicycle maintenance programme by a Qhubeka-trained and certified mechanic from the community to ensure that the bicycles remain operational.”
Each of the recipients receives a Blue Bike, pump, helmet, tools and lock, as well as training provided by a bicycle field mechanic.
Uitenhage residents are the fourth group to receive bikes this year, following handovers in Bergville (KwaZulu-Natal), Alexandra and Soweto (both Gauteng).