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Barikiwa is all about helping people. This is our passion – to assist people to pursue the sport of Archery. Whether it is a youngster who would like to hunt his first animal, or an adult interested in the sport – this is what we are here for, to assist anyone to enter into and enjoy the sport.
How many kids are not good at rugby, neither at cricket – they are ‘nothing’ at school? How many dads are still able to kick a rugby ball with his son outside in the garden, how many dads are able to do stuff with their kids?
We change all that. We take kids who feel they are not good at anything and give them something which they can be good at. Archery is not a difficult sport – anyone can do Archery, you just need the will to succeed. And Archery is a sport that dad may enjoy with his children. Let’s face it – many dads have lost the ability to run around outside after the rugby ball. But with Archery, dad can take his son (or daughter) outside in nature, enjoy quality time together, do stuff that both can enjoy and be good at. This is what we do at Barikiwa. We assist anyone interested in the sport to become passionate about the sport, no matter what age.
Over the years we have offered Archery as an informal activity at church bazaars, school fund raisers or school sport days, weekend outings, team-building events… At schools for the physically and mentally disabled, etc. We have brought joy into the hearts of many kids who had nothing in life. It is not possible to describe in words the joy experienced by a physical disabled child, or a girl in a wheelchair when they hit the target for the first time.
The addition of our own Archery Shop is a long-term dream come true. We have poured a lot of time and money into development of the sport – targets, bows, arrows are the biggest expense – they break, they get lost. The average archer has many unused arrows lying around, but the average archer won’t donate those old arrows to be used in development of the sport. The result was that it was up to us to fund our passion to assist people out of our household income – a requirement that put a lot of pressure on our personal finance. With the addition of our own shop, we hope to reset the balance, have the sport pay for itself and have more money available to pour into archery development, our true passion.
Barikiwa Archery is not about making money. Barikiwa is about making the sport accessible to as broad an audience as possible. We consciously try to keep prices low – many a competitor may view this as a threat – as us trying to compete on price. This is not true – our aim is not to compete with other shops – our aim is to make the sport accessible and affordable to as many people as possible. YES, we do hope to make profit out of the shop, but a large portion of whatever we make gets poured back into archery development, which in the long run will benefit every archery shop in the country.
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