Cycling to transcend race, religion culture and creed

SUZANNE BELLING

The cycle tour – which takes four days, with stopovers to sleep and visits to hospitals and disadvantaged schools – has snowballed. It first included Torah Academy Boys’ High, Pace Commercial Secondary School and Moletsane High School in Soweto, and now incorporates riders from an Afrika Tikkun Orange Farm education project and Israeli visitors, brought out by Johannesburg’s Madeleine Fane’s Partnership2Gether. 

This year there were 35 cyclists in all, with the majority from Torah Academy, Pace and Moletsane.

The riders left from the Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory in Houghton, as CycAlive was the first project to be endorsed by the Nelson Mandela Foundation after Tokyo Sexwale and Sello Hatang, of the Nelson Mandela Foundation, adopted the project.

They loved the project because it transcended race, religion, culture and creed, and forged friendships and the learners learned from one another. They saw the Jewish boys daven, the Christian boys worship and learned songs in Hebrew and the vernacular along the way. 

The friendships among the boys involved, are ongoing and they meet regularly to distribute stationery and fund computers, classrooms and other essentials to underprivileged schools.

“From a small discussion in a classroom, we set about creating ubuntu, dreaming big, thinking about changing the world, our surroundings, and our country. It was creating ubuntu and having the ability to change South Africa,” Rabbi Reuven Finkelstein, one of the Torah Academy teachers, said.

Rabbi Dovid Hazdan, dean of Torah Academy and initiator of the project, said at the birth of CycAlive it “was the dawn of a brave new country. We wanted to do something that would mesmerise.”

The cyclists were given a ceremonial send-off on Sunday by the Springs Field Band and motorbike riders from Steelwings and Rolling Thunder, who escorted the riders out of Gauteng, while police directed the traffic and blocked off the road.

A spirit of excitement permeated the learners, many of whom had never visited the seaside. Sthembiso Mabizela, a learner at the Mphethi Mhlatsi Secondary School in Orange Farm, has never seen the sea and was awed at the prospect.

“I learnt to ride a bicycle at the Afrika Tikkun Centre in Orange Farm. I am looking forward to the ride and what the experience is all about,” he said.

Saying a prayer for the safety of the cyclists, Rabbi Yossi Chaikin, principal of Torah Academy Boys’ High School, prayed to Hashem to “put into the hearts of all South Africans a spirit of wisdom and understanding that we may recognise that nation building is founded on love and concern for each individual citizen – regardless of race, religion, culture or language – and on mutual respect for the rights of each individual community and religion to express itself freely and (be) uninhibited to thereby contribute to the uniqueness and betterment of our country.”