Big Plans: Cycling, Volunteering and Fundraising
Dear <<First Name>>,
I am delighted to bring you news of our pioneering cycling initiative, our most ambitious volunteer programme to date, some wonderful fundraising efforts…and an important request!
Ground-breaking International partnership will bring cycling to thousands of children in rural South Africa
An innovative partnership has been developed between organisations from the UK and South Africa to establish a specialist cycle hub to enable thousands of children in rural South Africa to learn how to ride and maintain bikes.
Since 2016, the University of Leeds and the Bambisanani Partnership have devised and delivered a Cycling to Success programme based at Mnyakanya High School in Nkandla, KwaZulu-Natal (KZN). This programme has led to almost 200 young people learning how to ride bikes safely and to also maintain and fix bikes out in the community. This programme has also operated a bike rental scheme to allow leaners who live great distances from school to ride to and from school. The project has gained widespread acclaim, including praise from World Champion professional cyclist, Lizzie Diegan MBE who has given her own kit to support it.
The ambition has always been to expand and grow the programme to further schools in the area to broaden the reach and numbers of children gaining these valuable life skills. Over the last two years, the University of Leeds and the Bambisanani Partnership have been working with the highly respected cycling NGO, KZN Cycling, to identify opportunities for collaboration and to expand the project across a great number of schools and across the calendar year.
The Bambisanani Cycling to Success programme introduced in the remote Nkandla region has had an enormous impact. This is an area where children can routinely walk two hours to and from school each day. The bikes have been subsequently been used for transportation, recreation, informal sport and even by the local football team for fitness training. Other remote rural communities also approached the Partnership to see if they could be involved but until now this has not been possible. The collaboration with KZN Cycling dramatically increases capacity to bring cycling, with all its transformative benefits, to other communities.
In this last week, the Bambisanani Partnership and KZN Cycling have signed a three-year agreement worth over £50,000 to establish a cycling hub in the Nkandla region of South Africa. This new hub will have a local community member as a member of staff to deliver schools cycling programmes, as well as community clinics and organise races and events across the area. The new hub will enable 5,000 young people per year to become cyclists and mechanics, as well as acting as a talent identification programme for KZN-Cycling performance pathway. This new partnership provides an exciting opportunity to empower the young people of Nkandla, as well as providing a blueprint for future programmes and projects.
The commitment and enthusiasm for this project is clearly evident from those involved:
“We are all excited to develop this new partnership. A cycling hub like this, run by the community, for the community is development at its best. We have already seen the significant impact our cycling projects have had in Nkandla; this expansion is great news and I am sure will make a long-term impact on those who benefit from it.”
Andrew Lockwood, University of Leeds and Bambisanani Partnership Trustee
“We’ve always believed that we have a good programme in place across all eleven districts in the province, and every year we have tens of thousands of youngsters that get included in the various elements, but the new agreement that has been put in place with the Bambisanani Partnership not only endorses the hard work being done by all, but more significantly, allows for longer term strategic planning linked to elements that are going to positively impact on the lives of the people of the Nkandla region. For people in the deep rural areas of KZN, bikes and the linked opportunities that bikes have are life changing. If there were more organisations like the Bambisanani Partnership that got behind development programmes like this, whether here or elsewhere in the world, there would be more smiles on more faces every day…”
Alec Lenferna, Chief Executive Officer of KZN Cycling
I am absolutely delighted to have signed this agreement to work in partnership with KZN Cycling. Our own cycling programmes in the deep rural areas have been a resounding success and it is a wonderful opportunity to be now collaborating with KZN Cycling to bring cycling to thousands more young people. Significantly, this work will also involve the KZN Department of Education and the KZN Department of Sport and Recreation who we have worked closely with for many years. Massive thanks must go to Andy and Alec for working tirelessly to create this pioneering programme. With final preparations now underway, the first children will be participating in the programme by early June of this year.
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Bambisanani Partnership to deliver its most ambitious volunteer programme in South Africa
This summer will see the most ambitious Bambisanani Partnership volunteer programme in South Africa to date. In June, July and August volunteer teams from St. Mary’s School, Menston, the
University of Leeds, Leeds Trinity University and Newcastle College will work in partnership with schools and other organisations in the rural Nkandla region of KwaZulu-Natal to deliver a range existing Bambisanani programmes as well as introducing new ones. In total, 58 students and members of staff have volunteered to work with local communities and schools in one of South Africa’s most challenging and deprived rural and remote areas.
The Bambisanani Partnership volunteer visits to South Africa were suspended during Covid and their reinstatement has been welcomed by all concerned: “It is wonderful that the visits will be starting again. Over the years they have made an incredible impact and changed the way that young people from both countries see the world and themselves. The visits enable special human connections to be made that change lives for the better and forever.”
Mrs PK Zondi, Bambisanani Coordinator, Mnyakanya High School.
During the three years of Covid the charity demonstrated great resilience, determination and creativity in not only sustaining many of its ongoing activities but actually introducing some new projects with students in both countries. Much time was spent on maintaining the international relationships but also developing new ones. As a consequence, these visits will involve new schools, colleges and other organisations.
This year’s programme of varied activities will see Bambisanani volunteers work with over 1,000 Zulu students in primary, secondary schools and in the wider community. More than 200 students will participate in Bambisanani Sports Leadership programmes. Students from St. Mary’s and Newcastle College will collaborate with Zulu students to jointly deliver Sports and Reading Festivals for over 400 primary school learners. Students from the University of Leeds and Leeds Trinity University will deliver a Sports Leadership Festival for primary school learners in the town of Eshowe. The university teams will also work on the Bambisanani and KZN Cycling initiative that will launch this summer and see the collaboration teach 5,000 young people a year how to ride and maintain bikes. Considerable sports coaching will also take place as well as the teaching of other subject areas in all schools. All four UK institutions will work in collaboration with the Norwegian charity, Zulufadder, at the Doremi Day Care Centre for orphans and vulnerable children.
Newcastle College is the latest UK institution to join the Bambisanani Partnership and are clearly delighted to be taking students to South Africa for the very first time. Brogan O’Connor from the college said. "Newcastle College is honoured and excited to be joining the Bambisanani Partnership and will commit to representing the partnership with positivity and pride to uphold the values and standards set by both organisations. We recognise the amazing work that has been done over the last 17 years and we commit fully to this, aiming to add further value to the partnership by the continued involvement of Newcastle College.”
St. Mary’s School will have two groups working in South Africa this summer involving 34 Sixth Form students and staff. Miss Charlotte Wood from St. Mary’s said: “It is just wonderful that we are very much ‘back to work’ with the volunteer visits. It will allow for students to work hand in hand with their South African counterparts and explore the programme which has brought so much success over the years. It will hopefully, make the St. Mary’s students more aware of how valuable the work of Bambisanani is allowing them to pass on their experiences to younger members of the St. Mary’s community and in doing so inspire the next generation of volunteers.”
Suzzi Garnett from the University of Leeds added: “The joint University of Leeds and Leeds Trinity University visit this summer represents a great chance to build on the projects of the past as well as look to a sustainable future for the Cycling to Success project. This group of students will deliver new things in new ways and help determine the next steps for the project.”
The commitment and dedication of our team to create such amazing learning opportunities is simply remarkable. We created a fantastic platform during Covid to massively extend our work further and this is a great example of that. The encounters that will result have the potential to influence young people from South Africa and the UK that will be responsible for shaping society in the future. This is real education for a better world and we are indebted to the very special individuals and institutions that enable this to happen.
Beyond the Bambisanani volunteer programme, the charity also has an extensive range of initiatives that operate throughout the year including its Cycling programme in partnership with KZN Cycling, International Athletics Challenge that links primary schools in both countries, joint training of Physical Education Teachers and Sports Coaches linking universities in both countries, Bambisanani Awards that promote Global Citizenship, Leadership and Volunteering for secondary and primary school students in both countries and a Bursary scheme supporting South African students into university and college.
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Fundraising
It is frequently said of the Bambisanani Partnership that we ‘punch well above our weight’; a small charity that makes a big impact. We are a charity that is totally dependent on fundraising from external sources to enable all our programmes and projects.
The student volunteers travelling to South Africa this year have raised a remarkable £120,000 to fund their own visit and all the related activities. Our young people have worked tirelessly in a myriad of creative ways to achieve the necessary funding target. Young people per se tend to get a ‘bad press’ but I am constantly inspired and reinforced by their desire to make a difference in the world.
Well don e also to David Farmer, Deputy Headteacher at one of our Bambisanani schools, St. Joseph’s Primary School, Pudsey for raising over £1,000 to support the partnership. Amongst other things, David has completed a swimming marathon (1,920 lengths!) in order to raise funds for our International Athletics Challenge and to provide equipment for this year’s Sports Festival for primary school learners in South Africa which will delivered collaboratively by students from St. Mary’s School, Eshowe High School and Mnyakanya High School. Inspired by our new cycling partnership, David has now decided that he wants to cycle the equivalent distance of the UK to Africa (2,000 miles!) to raise more funds for the charity.
 Two teachers from St. Mary’s School, Matt Harvey and Tim Keefe, will be running in the Rob Burrows Marathon (26.2 miles) in Leeds next Sunday to also raise money for the partnership. We send them our very best wishes. To sponsor them please go to https://cafdonate.cafonline.org/19318
We could not do all that we do without such fantastic support
We have a small army of over 50 volunteers in both countries who give their time freely to make things happen. We are in constant ‘fund-raising mode’ to secure the money required for our various projects and programmes. With no employees or premises, our administration costs are minimal, ensuring that the money that we do receive goes to our projects. Additionally, we ALWAYS use whatever funding we do have as ‘leverage’ to secure further funding from South African sources. A key element of our Bambisanani philosophy is NEVER to fund 100% of a project as we believe that this can create a ‘dependency culture’ and lack of ownership that is at ‘best’ patronising and at worst ‘simply’ self-defeating.
We are absolutely committed to genuine partnership working, engagement, capacity building and the empowerment of individuals and communities that we work with. Our Cycling partnership mentioned above is a good example of this: we will contribute £25,000 over three years and so will our South African partners – we consequently get a £50,000 project for £25,000 – and so do they – 15,000 young people will also learn how to ride and maintain bikes: win-win-win. There is also Gift Aid (UK) to consider: A person donating £100 to our Cycling programme would enable us to claim 25% Gift Aid thus turning the £100 into £125. The £125 is then matched by South African sources so a donation of £100 in the UK creates £250 of benefit! This is the way that we always try and operate, creating the best possible value, additionality and impact that we can.
As this Newsletter hopefully illustrates, we have no shortage of vision or ambition; our work makes a difference and we are keen to both sustain and expand it. Over the next 12 months we will need considerable funding to be able to deliver our programmes e.g., International Athletics Challenge (£2,100), University Bursaries (£2,000), Cycling Project (£10,000), Sports Equipment (£3,400) and Sports pitch at Mnyakanya School (£35,000), NB student volunteers visiting South Africa raise ALL of their own funding.
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Can you help?
The most difficult part of what I do (by far!) is asking for help and support but if you know any organisations, businesses or indeed individuals that might be able to help us financially then please do not hesitate to contact me. I would be more than willing to meet anyone, anywhere to discuss this vital matter further; our very future depends on it. Online donations can be made via our website:
https://cafdonate.cafonline.org/19318
There is an exciting summer (winter in SA) of Bambisanani developments ahead. As our most ambitious programme to date unfolds, I will endeavour to keep you informed of progress.
As ever, if you require any further information about any of the above then please do not hesitate to contact me.
With kind regards,
David
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