Outdoor activities and sport are being recognized as powerful tools for youth empowerment and skills development, especially in a context of high youth unemployment and acute social and economic challenges.

The Velokhaya Life Cycling Academy was founded in 2004 with the intention of using the sport of cycling to give children living in these under-resourced communities the life skills they need to deal with the challenges they face.  The name Velokhaya is a portmanteau of Vélo (bicycle in French) and Khaya in isiXhosa, which means “home”. For the past 21 years, the organisation has been based in Khayelitsha, Cape Town’s largest township with an estimated population of 700,000. “We use the bicycle as a tool to promote education”, explains Sipho Mona, Velokhaya’s general manager. “We’had a lot of success and some of our riders have actually gone abroad to represent South Africa”, Sipho explains, referring among others to figures such as Luthando Kaka, who participated in European races and also captained a national South African team.

Velokhaya focuses on education and recruits its members mainly from nearby schools. It helps children with additional tuition and training, but also incorporates sport, mental health and nutrition in order to address some of the typical challenges faced by children from the surrounding community.

Velokhaya receives some corporate funding, but generating revenue is a perennial challenge for the organisation. With large premises available to them, one of the avenues they are exploring is to sub-let parts of the large premises to small businesses in exchange for rental income. Additional goals include restoring a gender balance in their membership numbers, which is currently dominated by young men. The nutrition programme also needs to be rekindled.

Velokhaya ultimately wants to expand beyond the Cape Town area into areas like the Free State and Eastern Cape provinces, as well as Durban and Johannesburg.