Bikers blaze the way to keep the dream alive

Twenty-six bikers, more than 2200km of rural roads and 67 minutes of hands-on work at seven community projects in four provinces over the past week add up to probably the most dramatic and most publicised initiative honouring Mandela Day.

In the Bikers for Mandela Day initiative, selected celebrities and business people enthusiastically give of their time and energy to actively helping less privileged rural communities.

Bikers for Mandela Day aims to inspire people across the world to donate at least 67 minutes of their time giving back in service to communities.

This year's ride was planned to reinforce the new Nelson Mandela Foundation initiative, which asks individuals worldwide to give a little of their time every week to do a good deed for needy people in their communities or environment.

The biking contingent set off from Montecasino in Johannesburg on July 11, and over eight days roared across Gauteng, Free State, KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga and, finally, Swaziland, ending in Pretoria this morning, on Mandela Day.

During their journey they visited seven rural community projects, and were involved in revamping children's playgrounds, planting trees, preparing vegetable gardens, serving food in soup kitchens and helping to build houses and refurbish orphanages and community safe houses.

Big names like 5fm's DJ Fresh, singer Bok van Blerk, newsreader Angie Khumalo, actress Hanna Grobler and Survivor SA: Maldives winner and Binnelanders actor Hykie Berg dug, planted, built and helped feed people in need.

Joining them and the team's 15 support staff for some of the days were actor and Bike SA writer Saint Seseli, off-road motorbike trainer Jan du Toit (Jan Staal), sports presenter John Walland, business people and TV personalities.

Zelda la Grange, Mandela's executive assistant for more than 17 years, said Bikers for Mandela Day is a call to action for people everywhere to take responsibility for changing the world into a better place, one step at a time, just as Mandela did.

"We all know someone who's got something to give to someone else. For me, what Mandela Day is all about is organising those 'someones' and ensuring they give back to the community in a lasting and sustainable way.

"We use celebrity profiles in the Biking for Mandela Day project to elevate the campaign and to demonstrate to people that if a DJ Fresh, a Bok van Blerk or an Ivan Zimmerman can get their hands dirty, so can any ordinary member of the public. We're appealing to people to follow the example of their celebs."

Carrying the badge of the Nelson Mandela Foundation, the Bikers for Mandela Day drive is funded mainly by Vodacom and Spar. A significant number of support sponsors donate equipment and materials.

The initiative is backed by the humanitarian-awareness organisation 46664, which selected it as key to its mission of furthering Mandela's humanitarian legacy and fighting social injustice.

Mthobi Tyamzashe, Vodacom's executive director for Corporate Social Investment in the Vodacom Foundation, saw the Bikers for Mandela Day as a way to show people that finding ways to help is easier than people think.

"When people are asked to do something to help, they tend to think only of sophisticated things, big projects requiring large teams and huge resources, and the concept of helping becomes overwhelming. But the Bikers for Mandela Day shows people how easy it is to help. Simply by using your hands, you can build, dig, plant, assist, teach, show, support, feed - the list is endless," he said.

The bikers had a busy schedule. The first day saw them help restore and paint playground equipment for a children's home near Harrismith. The next day, they planted a garden and cleaned the monument at the Nelson Mandela Capture Site in Howick, where Mandela was arrested in 1962.

On the third day, the bikers installed shelves, helped prepare food and planted a vegetable garden at a school and orphanage in Eshowe.

On the Thursday, they went to Jozini to work with community organisations in a soup kitchen, before doing repairs and improvements in the home of a child-headed household. Friday took the group to Swaziland, where they laid a symbolic wreath at Samora Machel's memorial site in Mbuzini.

On day six they worked with the Nelspruit Community Forum restoring a care-centre house for orphans, handing over school uniforms and clothing for a shelter for homeless children and upgrading a playground at a disability centre in Hazyview. On the final day, the team planted a veggie garden at a Graskop orphanage before upgrading bedrooms and bathrooms of a children's home in Belfast.

Sello Hatang, information and communications manager for the Nelson Mandela Foundation, said Bikers for Mandela Day inspired people globally to take their own action and inspire their own change, starting today.