It has been an absolute honour to be a part of the Gryphons Abroad project this year!

The cycle to success week of the trip has been amazing. To see students who had never been on a bike cycle by themselves and know how to fix them when something went wrong after only three days of teaching is pretty unbelievable!

The children were all really friendly and to see how determined they were to learn was very inspiring.

group of south african students and leeds students smiling with bikes

I spent the majority of my week with the beginner group and you could how much progress the kids made in such a short amount of time. Our group shrank when more and more of them advanced to the intermediate and advance groups. I asked one girl whether she wanted to take a short break from peddling practice and she said,

“No, we must carry on”!

This was definitely a highlight of my day.

The children kept us on our toes the whole time and they definitely weren’t afraid to share their culture with us mid cycle session. If they weren’t teaching us a traditional Zulu dance, they were teaching us how to count to ten in Zulu. All of which I’ll remember for life.

It’s been an amazing experience! I’m proud to say I helped teach 30 kids how to ride a bicycle in just a few days. I am however even prouder to say that a group of 30 kids have taught me more than I could have ever imagined. I discovered the perseverance the children had as well as the importance of Zulu culture in those same couple of days!

Find out more about the Gryphons Abroad project and how you could be a part of it.