Bicycles are being made available for Muslim girls at a school in east London to encourage them to take up cycling.
The Transport for London (TfL) grant is part of a £150,000 scheme to help encourage communities who do not use bikes to take up the activity.
Eighty girls and relatives have signed up for a cycling club at the Central Foundation School in Bow, east London.
Head teacher Anne Hudson said the scheme would help the girls experience the "sheer joy" of cycling.
Benefits of cycling
A TfL spokeswoman said the scheme was part of the Cycle London Promotional Partnership (CLPP), and would help pay for 20 bikes and for two teachers to be trained as cycling teachers.
"It's not just for the pupils - it's something the whole community can become involved in," she said.
The school was chosen to host the sessions because it is based in a predominantly Muslim community and the scheme is designed to encourage people to take up riding in communities which do not normally cycle.
Seventy per cent of the pupils at the school are Muslim.
TfL said many women from Muslim communities do not know how to cycle because they had come from communities where "they did not have the opportunity to cycle, or cycling is uncommon for women in their communities, or the cost of purchasing cycles is a barrier".
Ms Hudson said: "The CLPP community grant is giving our students and members of the local community the opportunity to experience the benefits of cycling - for their health, the environment and for the independence and sheer joy cycling gives."
I wonder what the response would be if it was only Jewish girls, or only white girls... No wonder your average white council estate tenant is thinking of voting BNP.
do you remeber this from earlier in the year.
Angling? It's too white and too middle-aged, say ministers as they go fishing for women and ethnic minorities
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