Cycling for Change During Cape Town Climate Week

Participants in the Cycle for System Change bike from Mowbray to Langa.

Cape Town Climate Week kicked off this week with a Cycle for System Change event, where about 30 participants cycled from Bertha House in Mowbray to Langa Bicycle Hub.

On bikes supplied by the hub, participants dodged traffic and crossed busy intersections during the 30-minute ride to Langa. Stella Hertantyo, communications officer at African Climate Alliance (ACA), which hosted the event, said the objective was to get people to journey through parts of the city and gain a better understanding of its divisions and inequality.

“The way our city is laid out, the people that need to work in the city centre and surrounding areas live the furthest away,” Hertantyo said. “So we really, really need public transport to make the city more accessible.”

Hertantyo said stronger, more reliable public transport systems can decrease carbon emissions.

On Tuesday, participants visited community gardens in Elsies River, Delft and Mitchells Plain as part of a Sowing Seeds for System Change City Tour. The event showed how these gardens can help address food insecurity in poorer communities.

“This is one way that people can actually access fresh, high-quality, nutritious food,” said Mitchelle Mhaka, regional lead at ACA.

Mhaka said poor communities are often hardest hit by environmental issues. “If the price of bread goes up by one rand, we might think that’s insignificant, but there are people who are going to be severely impacted by what we might perceive to be a small change,” she said.

At Oppie Yaart, a garden run by the Queer Food Growing Collective, Melissa Britz and Lucy Campbell encouraged participants to start their own home gardens. “Growing food is also political,” Campbell said. “There’s a quote that goes… “We’re not equal until we eat equal.’”

The city tour ended at SEED, a non-profit organisation in Mitchells Plain offering courses in environmental education. The organisation also provides fresh food to the neighbouring primary school, and is launching a mobile seed exchange.

The African Climate Alliance will host more events throughout the week, including a documentary screening, a talk, and a storytelling gathering. They hope to pilot the first Climate Week in Joburg later this month.

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