This article first appeared in the 27 June 2022 edition of the Cape Argus newspaper.
Cape Town - A marching band, red carpet and the love of the community awaited Bikers For Change, who concluded their journey across Africa in aid of the Mustadafin Foundation.
Bikers for Change completed their 92 200km journey through Africa, on Sunday to raise funds for the foundation and its “Feed a Belly, Feed a Mind” campaign.
The fleet of motorbikers were warmly and emotionally welcomed by many, especially by the elderly, who stood patiently with placards in hand at the curbside outside the Mustadafin head office in Antelope Street, Bridgetown.
On May 13, 10 bikers left Cape Town and made their way through Namibia, Zambia, Tanzania, Malawi and Botswana.
One of the founding Mustadafin members, Ghairunisa Johnstone Cassiem, said the public was requested to sponsor R12 towards the campaign.
“There was this major need for our community to look particularly at food security, as well as the fact that such a lot of unemployment has also taken place in the last almost three years.”
Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, Mustadafin fed 15 000 people, now increased to 27 910 people.
The Bikers for Change campaign aimed to reach 1 million donors in order to feed 1 million people.
Mustadafin assisted in feeding 1 million people on June 18, 2020 and had intended to do the same this year.
“We wanted to meet a million people to feed a million people, so if one person gives us R12, you support the bikers but you also feed a person for R12 and we want to feed a million people.
“We didn’t meet our target so we’ve extended it to July 18 with Mandela Day, so we’re hoping we will meet that 1 million people this year.”
Biker Shaheed Isaacs said: “We are actually very grateful to be that fortunate in the sense that we had the money, we had the time and we had the energy to do it.
“We thought why not make this trip also a part of our social responsibility and the other part about it which is also very important, but the whole thing is Africa has always been marked as this dark and dangerous place. It is the safest place, culturally it is such a fantastic place. A beautiful place to go to.”