What a bicycle handover looks like in Orange Farm

50% of school children in Orange Farm will walk the entire route from home to school. The average trip to school takes 40 minutes which for an average child means they walk over 3km’s to school and back each day.

On arrival the first sight that greeted us was 250 bicycles.

For every 500 bicycles that are earned in an area, one bicycle mechanic is trained and equipped to maintain the bicycles and set up his own bicycle mechanic business. This is RC, the mechanic who will be working in Orange Farm, checking the bicycles before the handover.

The 250 school kids receiving bicycles study their safety guides intently during the safety briefing before they can take ownership of their bicycles.

20 children are matched with their bicycles at a time. The children earn their bicycles through our study2own programme. This means prior to accepting the bicycle they sign a contract with World Vision and the school committing to increasing their school attendance over a period of two years in exchange for keeping the bicycle.

Thando (16) was the first child to receive the bicycle she earned at the handover. She wants to be a dentist because she wants to help children when they have tooth problems.

With a Qhubeka Buffalo Bicycle, a child’s commute time is reduced by up to 75%.

Lokhuthule poses with her friend and her brand new bicycle. Her friend is hoping that Lokhuthule will give her lifts to school. If you want to help put more girls on bicycles you can make a difference by donating here.

One bicycle impacts five lives in a community. While the boy in the blue jersey didn’t receive a bicycle, his brother did. They plan to share the pedalling and give lifts to each other to and from school.

Some things change and some things stay the same. In Orange Farm coal is still delivered by horse cart… and now children ride bicycles to school.