Sibonokuhle Mboni, [email protected]
NEDBANK will donate a dollar for every kilometre cycled on this year’s Nedbank Tour de Great Dyke to the Gifted Children Foundation.
The pledge was announced on Thursday night at King Solomon’s Hotel in Kwekwe. The tour’s first of its kind book The Great Dyke: Beyond the Rock was launched at the same event. It was written by Minex chairperson Munyaradzi Hwengwere.
Nedbank representative Farai Sithole the Company Secretary said the bank came on board as title partner because the tour carries a purpose. “Talent is everywhere, but opportunity is not always available,” he said.
He said the money should help gifted children from communities along the Dyke to access education and mentorship. The bank hopes they will become “engineers, doctors, miners, bankers and leaders.”
About 200 cyclists set off on Thursday from Zimplats in Selous, with school pupils joining the convoy through each town, according to event co-ordinator Moses Charedzera. The party slept in Kwekwe on Thursday. They ride to Unki Mine via Gweru and Shurugwi on Friday then make the final leg to Zvishavane on Saturday morning.
Sithole described the Great Dyke as “an economic ecosystem” rather than only a mining belt. Nedbank finances mining companies, their contractors, small businesses and workers along the belt.
Hwengwere told guests that storytelling builds factories and hospitals and drives countries. Citing Vision 2030, he said Zimbabweans deserve to prosper in their own country and urged them to start by changing their minds.
He then recited a poem that gives the Dyke a voice. It describes the formation as the spine of Zimbabwe. It credits the Dyke with the wealth of mines and towns such as Zimplats, Mimosa, Unki and Zimasco and with the nation’s talent.
“The power was never in the rock. The power is in the mind,” the poem says. It closes: “The Great Dyke was never just a rock. The Great Dyke is us.”
The foundation has supported 159 learners from primary school to university since its inception. Its director said the book explains why the Dyke matters to children living along it. She said the project took more than two years.
Engineer Stephen Ndiyamba the General Manager and Executive Director of Mimosa Mining Company in Zimbabwe described the Dyke as “a significant part of Zimbabwe’s natural heritage and economic story.”
The book’s guiding question is “What remains when the minerals are gone?”
Charedzera said the tour is “very poignant” this year because of the book with part of the proceeds going to the foundation.
