Aid organisations estimate that around one billion people worldwide have no adequate means of transport. "Many Africans spend four hours a day walking or spend a quarter of their income paying for public transport," write those responsible at the British organisation "Re-Cycle" on their website. Walking many kilometres is cheap, but at the same time ineffective. In the same time it takes a pedestrian to walk 2.5 kilometres, a cyclist covers 10 kilometres. In addition, the load capacity of a bicycle is up to five times greater than that of a pedestrian. Small farmers thus have the opportunity to offer part of their harvest for sale on the market and increase their family's income. Not to mention the opportunity for young people to find a job outside their village and commute to work every day by bike.
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World Bicycle Relief
"The amazing bicycleman" - American journalists awarded this title to SRAM founder Frederick K. Day because of his extraordinary social commitment. In 2004, shaken by the devastation caused by the tsunami in Sri Lanka, Day began to set up an aid organisation. After delivering 24,000 bikes to Sri Lanka, Day concentrated his efforts on Africa: his aid organisation has so far delivered over 110,000 bikes to people in 14 African countries.
Projects for schools
African children walk up to ten kilometres to school. In cooperation with local organisations, "World Bicycle Relief" provides pupils and students with free bicycles.
Mechanic
Special training programmes train locals to become bicycle mechanics. To date, around 750 men and women have completed a training programme that provides them with a regular income - and the new bike owners with reliable support in the event of breakdowns.
Start-ups
... can buy "Buffalo Bikes" specially developed for this purpose. In cooperation with local organisations, microloans are granted to people who want to use the bike to implement a business idea. They pay back the instalments from the future income. Donate en Donations can be made on the website by credit card or via Paypal: www.worldbicyclerelief.org
Bicycles for Africa e.V.
The non-profit organisation based in Oschatz has been collecting discarded bikes, spare parts and tools since 2011. The donations in kind are accepted at various locations in Germany and shipped to Africa with the help of monetary donations. The first projects in Namibia have already been completed, and now the development workers from Saxony are focussing their work on Zambia.
Current project
In the summer, two containers with 450 bikes each were sent on their journey. A clever idea: after arrival, the container remains on site, becomes the property of a community and is to house a workshop for maintenance and repairs in future. Mechanics will be trained in collaboration with the organisation BEN (Bicycle Empowerment Network).
Special feature
The bikes are not given away, but sold by the respective recipient community. The profits generated are used to maintain the workshops and are intended to benefit other community projects such as kindergartens, schools, soup kitchens, etc. Bicycle collection A new collection campaign will start on 1 February 2013. The exact addresses of the collection points can be found on the association's website; further collection points are planned in Munich, Weimar and Dresden from March 2013. We are looking for good, used bicycles, mountain bikes, children's bikes and tools.
Donations Donation account at Volksbank Raiffeisenbank Dresden, "Fahrräder für Afrika e.V.", account no. 313 491 1017, sort code 850 900 00.
www.fahrraeder-fuer-afrika.de
Worldbike
While the fan base for the clever transport solutions from "Xtracycle" in California is constantly growing, its non-profit sister organisation "Worldbike" is less well known in this country. Ross Evans founded both organisations at the same time. With the help of donations, "Worldbike" builds cargo bikes that are delivered to people in Cuba, Mexico, Rwanda, Senegal and Thailand.
History
As a 19-year-old, Ross Evans travelled to Managua and developed a cargo bike for war-damaged farmers as part of a study project - the prototype of the current Worldbike bicycle. Ross Evans: "With a cargo bike, a person can transport five times more goods than by carrying the usual load on their head." Today, his longtail frames are manufactured in America and then assembled on site in Africa, Central America or Asia.
Slum project
Worldbike is currently working to improve living conditions in slum areas of Kenya, where the lack of organised waste disposal poses an increasing health risk. In cooperation with local organisations, transport solutions and business models have been developed for small entrepreneurs who transport waste to central collection points where it is separated for recycling and final disposal. Worldbike" also supports numerous other projects.
Donations Donations can be made via PayPal or credit card on the website: www.worldbike.org
Wheels4Life
He is a multiple world champion in trials, has his place in the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame and explores the whole world on his bike: mountain bike legend Hans Rey founded "Wheels4Life" with the original aim of donating 50 bikes to people in the Third World. But that wasn't the end of the story. Today, "Wheels4Life" supports 25 aid projects on four continents and talks about this in an interview:
What criteria are used to select people who receive a bike?
We work with local aid organisations or individuals on the ground. They help us to manage projects and select people who really need a bike. These are often people who have no access or no money for public transport. At the beginning of the collaboration, we initiate relatively small projects of 10 to 20 bikes to ensure that everything works as we envisage it.
Where do the wheels come from?
We usually buy the bikes locally. This helps the local economy and makes it easier to find spare parts. It's also much cheaper than shipping the bikes.
How many bikes has "Wheels4Life" handed over since it was founded?
So far, we have supported 170 projects in over 20 different countries, totalling around 4100 bicycles. As a bike is often used by the whole family or the neighbourhood, we can assume that our help has reached between 15,000 and 20,000 people.
What is your motivation for this kind of charity work? I
n my adventurous travels, I have seen the importance of bikes in the developing world. The sport has given me a dream career and this is my way of giving something back. My wife and I do our work for "Wheels4Life" purely on a voluntary basis.
How much money do you need to raise to finance a bike?
Between 50 and 150 dollars are needed so that "Wheels4Life" can give a person a bike; even small amounts help.
Donations By credit card, Paypal on the website: www.wheels4life.orgfor international transfers: Swift Code BOFAUS6S; IBAN: GB91 LOYD 3096 2000 430402; Lloyds TSB.
Re-Cycle
In the UK, thousands of bikes that could improve the standard of living of many families in Africa are thrown away every year. This is why the organisation "Re-Cycle" exports used bikes to Africa. Since 1998, 41,777 bikes have been taken to 16 African countries, including many bikes from the British "Royal Mail". Storage and transport are financed by donations.
Donations Via Paypal or credit card on the website www.re-cycle.org
Bikes without Borders
The Canadian organisation "Bikes without Borders" distributes bikes to outpatient nurses and doctors who often have to walk up to four hours to visit patients. With a bike, they can complete more home visits in less time and still have more time to care for each individual. In addition, "Bikes Without Borders" is committed to purchasing bicycle trailers to transport sick people from remote villages to the nearest hospital. Portrait The example of Wilson Banda is typical: the family man and farmer has not studied medicine, but he is one of many helpers in Malawi, Africa, who care for the sick on a voluntary basis in their spare time. Wilson regularly visits malaria patients, tuberculosis sufferers and cares for people infected with Aids. With his new bike, he can care for more patients and has more time for his family and working in his field.
Donations Via Paypal or credit card on the website: www.bikeswithoutborders.org
CooP-Africa - Cycling out of Poverty
In 2004, Marieke de Wild and Luuk Eickmans from the Netherlands spent six months living in Uganda. There they got to know the work of an organisation that sold bicycles to local people on microcredit. On their return, they started a small donation project that quickly grew. Since 2007, "CooP-Africa - Cycling out of Poverty" has been a registered foundation whose work is divided into three main areas:
BIKE4WORK, BIKE- 4SCHOOL and BIKE4CARE.
Projects It would go beyond the scope of this article to list all the aid projects of this multi-award-winning organisation, but its website provides a good overview.
Women's work In some regions of Africa, the topic of "women and bicycles" still has negative connotations. Rumours that cycling makes you infertile, for example, are only slowly disappearing. In some villages in Burkina Faso, for example, "Coop-Africa" specifically supports women who use bicycles to sell crops or earn their money as travelling traders between farms.
Donations Via the donation form on the website by Paypal or credit card: www.coop-africa.orgfor international transfers: Swift Code SNSBNL2A; IBAN: NL68 SNSB 0906146356; SNS Bank.
Collect donations Are you planning a cycle tour? Then you can turn it into a fundraising campaign by asking friends to sponsor several kilometres of your journey. You will receive a CooP jersey as a thank you.
