It really is about beyond the bike...

I just had to share this with you all. Taken from the Beyond the Bike Facebook group 

The man in the photo is Blackson Banda, the cook at Janna School in Ndola, Beyond Ourselves’ first project and the one we visited at the end of the group ride. I first met Blackson last year when I visited with Richard & Tamsin Humes. He is a lovely guy and was super keen to cycle but couldn’t make the group ride. Instead, I was able to give him a lift on Thandie back to his home village on the border of Malawi. For financial reasons (a return bus fare from Ndola is a month’s salary), he hadn’t visited for 13 years and sadly wasn’t able to make his sister’s funeral last month. As such it was an emotional visit for him and a moving one for us. His sister died at the tender age of 35 and leaves 4 double orphans. Blackson is taking his 6 year old niece Catherine back to Ndola and hopes she will be able to attend Janna, thanks to the child sponsorship programme that Beyond Ourselves run. If you want to sponsor a child, £12.50 a month gives kids like Catherine a chance of a brighter future… http://www.beyondourselves.co.uk/sponsor-a-child/

Join the Beyond the Bike Facebook group to see what Stuart is up to or follow him on Twitter @beyondthebike

Beyond the Bike!

Two years ago when our friend Stuart Block first floated the idea of cycling across Africa to raise funds for Beyond Ourselves and a couple of other charities I have to admit that I thought he was slightly mad! I also thought it would never actually happen…

Yet, here we are with Beyond the Bike in full swing and the first Group Ride of the trip complete.

Somewhere along the way over the past couple of years amidst all the logistics, publicity, sponsors and organising,  I agreed to cycle part of the Zambia Group Ride. As the major beneficiary charity of the ride, it seemed the good and proper thing to do, to show willing and don a pair of padded shorts!

And so one of the toughest weeks of my life began!

There were 12 cyclists in total cycling from Lusaka to Ndola on the Zambikes that had been bought by one of the ride’s sponsors, Copperbelt Energy. The bikes are then being donated to the community schools Beyond Ourselves partners with in Ndola and Kitwe.

It was an incredible week with many lasting memories but what impacted me the most (apart from the saddle!) was that a group of people I hardly knew were willing to give up a week or two of their Summer and put themselves through such a physically demanding task in support of the bike ride and the work of Beyond Ourselves with communities in Zambia. But I’ll let you see for yourself:

In my previous blog I wrote about living generously, and what the past few weeks have showed me once again is that if we offer people the opportunity to be generous, more often than not they’ll take it! Something inside each one of us longs to be a part of something bigger, something worthwhile, something beyond ourselves…

In case you’re interested, here’s a bit more about the Beyond the Bike journey so far: