ROVIGO – Started last April 10th, the course to learn to ride a bicycle is having excellent feedback and participation. Promoted by the diocesan Caritas of Adria-Rovigo in collaboration with Fiab Rovigo, the initiative was born to give opportunities to use the two-wheeled vehicle to the women who attend “Vivere in Italia”, the Italian language school that Caritas has been promoting in Rovigo for more than fifteen years.
Learning to ride a bicycle, for everyone, means moving independently and using an easy means of transport in the city, as well as being environmentally friendly. “As Caritas we have had several opportunities to collaborate with Fiab – he says Davide Girotto, director of Caritas – and this year, thanks to their generous availability, it was finally possible to realize this project that we had been thinking about together for some time.
Our school is a meeting space, a place in which to offer foreign women opportunities to get to know the area they live in and to feel more and more part of the city. Being able to learn to ride a bike is absolutely part of this process of building citizenship.”
Several Fiab volunteers made themselves available with the “yellow” Amici della bici bikes, with a method of gradual approach to the new vehicle to first acquire balance and safety and then mastery of the bicycle. In the large courtyard of the diocesan seminary which willingly opened its gates to give participants the opportunity to experiment on the bike in a place free from cars, every Wednesday and Saturday morning, until May, practice meetings are held which proceed by phase . First you learn to get on the bicycle without pedals, placing your feet and pushing with them, to understand how to balance and maneuver the handlebars; then, having inserted the pedals, try a slight descent to start pedaling; once you have become familiar with the vehicle and have acquired your balance, you begin to take short journeys to have more and more safety. These practical lessons will be concluded by a class meeting, again organized by Fiab, to impart knowledge of the highway code, i.e. correct cycling behavior on the road and the recognition of road signs.
Finally, a group outing is planned with a city tour to put into practice what has been learned, accompanied by Fiab volunteers and Caritas operators, and also to “celebrate” and share the “conquest” of the road and autonomy in travel. The group attending the course is made up of around 10 women of various nationalities: from Latin America to Central Africa, from India to Eastern countries. They are all participating with enthusiasm and commitment, aware of the wonderful opportunity offered to them. Some mothers also brought their children, because cycling together is fun too.
