MC-Cycle-Fundraiser : Child hunger drives bid to raise R1-million on 650km cycle ride

Mark Heywood has been cycling once a week for six months. He thinks it is enough training to do a cross-country mountain bike race of seven days. It’s 650km in total. But he’s not riding alone.

Heywood is taking with him his sincere belief that in a country of beautiful scenery, but also hidden despair and poverty, one person – and every person – has the power to make a change.

From 11 September 2026, he’s riding the Go2Sea to fundraise R1-million for the Union Against Hunger, to raise awareness of hunger and its effects, especially on children.

The ride is dedicated to the memory of Daily Maverick journalist Estelle Ellis, whose investigations, writing and compassion did so much to try to awaken action on hunger in the Eastern Cape.

Prior to her death, Heywood and Ellis were going to write a book together on what is needed to overcome hunger in South Africa.

“People are looking for something to do to remember Estelle and to take her passion and commitment forward. Contributing and sponsoring this ride is one way to do that, because we will make sure that whatever monies are raised, we step up and end hunger – not just within our lifetime, but within the next years.”

Why cycle for social justice?

For much of his life, Heywood has been a runner doing marathons like the Comrades. He switched to mountain biking as he got older.

“Running and now mountain biking has always been my strategy for staying sane in the midst of the craziness of the work that we do on social justice and human rights, and the lows and the traumas that you have to witness,” said Heywood to Daily Maverick.

With long distance, multi-day races, it hurts, he said, but the fitness grows as you ride. By day three, your bum had gone through the worst, he added. He knows that over the mountains, it’ll be a hard ride. He’s going to go as fast as fast as he can sensibly go.

He’ll be trundling on from Clarens to Sterkfontein, then from Emseni to Nottingham Road, and from Karkloof to Harburg, and finally, to Ballito.

He will ride through the Free State to KwaZulu-Natal, where chronic hunger is shown by the suffering of children:

• In the Thabo Mofutsanyana District (Clarens to Sterkfontein) in 2025, there were 239 cases of severe acute malnutrition in children under five, with eight deaths. It is the 10th highest incidence of severe acute malnutrition in the country.
• In the uThukela District (Sterkfontein to Emseni) there is no data.
• In the iLembe District (Emseni to Nottingham Road) there were 114 cases with 12 deaths – the seventh-highest fatality rate of severe acute malnutrition in 2025 in South Africa.
• In uMgungundlovu District (from Karkloof to Harburg), there is no data.
• On his last stretch, in eThekwini (from Harburg to Ballito), there were 561 instances of severe acute malnutrition in 2025, with 33 deaths. It is the third-highest incidence rate of severe acute malnutrition in children under five in the country.

Severe Acute Malnutrition is the presence of swelling in both feet or severe wasting, which is measured via the weight-for-height/length ratio, or a mid-upper-arm circumference of less than 115mm. It means that a child is dangerously at risk of illness or death and needs immediate medical attention.

More than numbers — more than a fundraiser

There are lifelong consequences for children with malnutrition.

“There’s more the absence of data than there is real data, and even the data that we have gives us a very incomplete picture. It gives us numbers. It doesn’t really give us lives and what those numbers mean for those children on a day-to-day basis or for their parents,” Heywood said to Daily Maverick.

“We have to get those numbers because if we’re going to do anything about stunting and severe acute malnutrition, we’ve got to know what’s going on. The president has committed to end stunting by 2030… We have to make sure that it’s more than just words on a piece of paper.”

As of 2025, in the Free State 32% of children under five were stunted, 11.4% were underweight, and 2.3% suffered from wasting.

In KwaZulu-Natal, 27.5% of children under five were stunted, 4.4% were underweight, and 2.1% suffered from wasting.

Stunting is a growth and development disorder caused by an ongoing lack of sufficient nutrients that causes children to have a shorter height than other children of the same age.

Fighting for the joy

“We’ve become so used to talking about inequality that it’s almost become meaningless,” Heywood said. “But the truth about inequality is that it means that absolute opposites exist cheek and jowl. You can have the massive wealth of Sandton and the rats and poverty of Alex, but in this context, you’ve got some of the most beautiful heritage sites of our country, and this ride allows you to see that.”

He thinks it is important that all of us know joy. He also thinks it’s not joy that blanks out the opposite, especially when that opposite is hidden despair. The race is going to take him close to villages where children are dying of malnutrition.

It shouldn’t be the case, but both of those things were part of our reality, he said.

“For me personally to fully enjoy my privilege, I have to do something that mitigates against other people’s disadvantages and holds out a prospect of hope,” Heywood explained.  “We all have a lot of power if we choose to use it, and we can exercise our power for good and for social justice, while still enjoying life – not in a kind of decadent and selfish way – but in fact, you have to enjoy life in order to fight for change, because it’s the joy of life that makes you fully understand what happens when those joys are completely denied to a large part of the population.” DM

You can donate to the BackaBuddy campaign here.