KARACHI, April 22: It is always heartening to see people give back to the community. What better way to do it than in an activity that is both healthy and fun to do?
Learning how to ride a bicycle is a skill most parents teach their children, yet they rarely ride bicycles themselves as adults. Although there is a Tour de Pakistan that takes place from Peshawar to Karachi every two years courtesy the Pakistan Cycling Federation, bicycle riding as a sport has yet to capture our national fancy the way cricket has and the way hockey used to.
Critical Mass is a part of a global social movement to reclaim the streets. It is present in over 300 cities around the world and requires no formal membership — the only criteria being that interested participants should know how to ride a bicycle. Critical Mass exists in Pakistan predominantly in three cities: Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad.
After organising approximately 88 successful rides in the past three and a half years, Critical Mass Karachi did a charity ride in support of Deaf Reach. A part of the Family Educational Services Foundation, Deaf Reach schools aims to provide education to hearing-impaired children throughout the country. Most of their faculty is also hearing-impaired and are previous graduates of the school.
Appealing to their friends, families and acquaintances for financial support, each rider rode 20km in exchange for a donation of Rs 1,000 from each person. More than 90 people showed up to participate.
The ride started shortly after dawn, around 6.30am and concluded around 8.00am. The riders assembled at a fast food restaurant on main Sea View road and followed Sea View road into Defence’s phase 8, completing a loop back to the restaurant.
Several celebrities were also spotted on the ride including Pakistani-British film and TV actor, Alyy Khan, and musician Ali Alam besides a few others.
Critical Mass Karachi usually does not conduct rides for charity but they made an exception in this case because, according to a senior member, Mustansir Bandukwala, “Daniel Marc Lantheir (who works at Family Educational Services Foundation is one of our regular riders. And because everyone else supported it.”
At the end of the ride, Deaf Reach announced that the event raised enough money to support the education of seven students at their school.
One of the advanced riders from the group, Ahsan Qadir, broke previously held records for maximum distance ridden in a month by bicycling 3,000km in March. As a show of appreciation for his achievement, another member of Critical Mass Karachi supported the education of one child at Deaf Reach in his name.
“I wasn’t expecting that my efforts were going to be rewarded that way,” he said. When he was short of 200km in reaching his 3,000km mark another member from the group promised to sponsor the education of one child at Deaf Reach if Ahsan met his goal. He did.