Bikes for Humanity Sydney

Hans and the team at the Southern Highlands chapter have powered ahead.

Over the past year they’ve collected over 380 bikes, fundraised, and organised storage through a partnership with the Wingecarribee Council.

Their container load of bikes was loaded to the ship this week. It’s bound for Namibia and will restock Bicycle Empowerment Centres across Namibia.

They’ll now have another empty container ready to stock full of another 400 bikes. So if you’re in the Southern Highlands you can get your second bike down there.

We’ll done guys.

Sonia our Canberra collection manager had the public raffle drawn with an audience of Auditors at the Australian National Audit Office.

And the winners are:

1st Prize – Alex Wilkinson from Tarago NSW

2nd Prize – Judith Williams from Nichols, ACT

3rd Prize – Jordan Mullens from Waramanga, ACT

Thanks to everyone who sold tickets and those who bought them we made over $1,000 for the transportation of bikes to Namibia.

This Saturday 16 February we’ll be receiving your bike donations at the Barangaroo South Construction site. On this site Lendlease has generously provided storage space and staff to assist the packing of our last container at their Community Day. Click here for more.

Get in early for tickets to win your chance to ride away with a great new Trek bike.

Thanks to Trek for generously donating this bike. For more specifications on this bike, one of most popular in Trek’s range, click here.

Second prize is a $100 sports pack.

All proceeds from ticket sales help us send bikes to empower people across Namibia.

Contact us if you’d like to buy tickets for $3 each, or sell tickets in your workplace, or to friends and family.

Werai Tea Room have once again held a fantastic and colourful sculpture competition. This time they choose Bikes for Humanity as the charity that patrons votes were donated to.

Thanks for the wonderful generous donation. This fundraiser will help us deliver more bikes to Namibia. If you’re in the Southern Highlands check out the tea rooms and the sculptures. How to get there and other details are here.

One of the top entries in the Weria Tea Rooms Sculpture Competition

Crash sculpture at Werai comp

In an amazing feat of determination, Joy and Jeff Cornford traveled all the way from Temora, over two days, with a load of donated bikes for the Bikes For Humanity collection container. The container is generously accommodated at the Moss Vale Reviva Centre site.

The bikes were gathered up by the efforts of the Temora Men’s Shed and this happy boost of 50 brings the next shipment date that much closer.

A huge thanks to the Temora Mens shed for this big effort.

If you’re part of a Men’s shed and can arrange collection and delivery of bikes to us, email us.

Research suggests that bicycle ownership in sub-Saharan Africa could boost household income by as much as 35%.

Appropriate transport technologies for poorer segments of the population in the form of low-cost means of transport have in most cases either not been developed or not been sufficiently disseminated. One example of this situation is the bicycle: Although in terms of numbers it is by far the most significant means of transport and conveyance on the planet, with more than one billion such vehicles.

However, in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) it has still not progressed beyond a niche existence, and what is more is based on technology that is 50 years old.

Having to make many journeys on foot leads to the expenditure of much time and effort that soon inhibits agricultural productivity and limits people’s ability to reach external markets to sell goods, as well as other opportunities for productive activity. As a result, poor households are barely able to earn additional money income or are financially overburdened by monopolistic transport services and low purchase prices paid by middlemen.

Lack of money leads in turn to low levels of savings. The acquisition of even simple means of transport becomes prohibitively expensive, and greatly limited use of public means of transport results in people being isolated from important facilities such as health care centres, markets, authorities and schools. These conditions also isolate a large part of the population from political and social life, because only a small number of people have regular access to education, information and communication, people to
whom LEINBACH (2000, p.2) attributes vital importance in the process of social and economic change.

Find out more at eurist.info/app/…/Bicycle_ownership_in_rural_Uganda_Long.pdf

The remote town of Karasburg in Namibia now has a Bicycle Empowerment Centre thanks to the volunteers, bike donors, partners and fundraisers of Bikes for Humanity Sydney.

The Centre was set up by local Namibian communities using leading practice development aid principles to provide simple, sustainable, empowerment through improved local transport.

Karasburg Bicycle Empowerment Centre

The shipping container sent by Bicycles for Humanity Sydney has now been renovated into a self-sustaining bike workshop run by, and for, the local communities. It provides apprenticeships, employment and assists the funding and operations of a local health care provider.

This new Bicycle Empowerment Centre strengthens the supply route to the four existing workshops in other southern Nambian towns. This area is particularly disadvantaged as its sparse population has not attracted the same levels of development support as more populous northern regions. Karasburg has a population of 4,000 people, but provides services to a large catchment of sheep farms. It is also on the main route to the South African town of Upington.

Building the Bicycle Empowerment Centre

Our volunteers collected over 400 pre-loved bikes from people right across NSW, and raised funds through donations, fundraisers and volunteer activities.

As the bikes from right across NSW work their way into the community they’ll start to improve people’s access to healthcare, education and employment.

On Monday 2nd April, 2012, Sydney’s first shipment of bikes was dispatched under the blessing of the Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore, MP.

The generosity of Maersk Line, one of the largest shipping companies in the world, has greatly expanded the capabilities of Bikes for Humanity. Maersk Line kindly donated a 40′ shipping container this year, and transported it jam-packed with bikes to Walvis Bay, on behalf of Bikes for Humanity.

In a further show of much appreciated support, Maersk Line has agreed to ship one container each year to our in-country partner, the Bicycle Empowerment Network (BEN) Namibia.

We’re seeking travelers keen to help us photograph and video our Karasburg container project. We’ve put up an advert seeking volunteers on MMULE for further details  Click here.

So if you’re in Namibia or a southern African country we’d love your help capturing footage (stills or videos) of the impact the bikes are having on the community of karasburg. If you are in the area, check it out and send us your feedback and footage so we can share it with our donors back here in Australia.

“one bike can change a life, one life can change a community, live to ride”

What a huge success! On Saturday fourteen wonderful volunteers packed our first container load of bikes ready to ship to Karasburg Namibia where it becomes a Bicycle Empowerment Centre. Thanks to all who came along.

If you want to be a part of the fun of a collection day in future check out our schedule here, and put in your dairy the dates you can make it.

Follow our packing efforts in this great time lapse video below from our photographer Tim Wimborne.

As Igor rides around Australia he’ll be an ambassador for Bikes for Humanity. He’ll tell people he comes across about us. He’s also set a target for himself to raise enough funds to send a full container of bikes to help empower people in Africa.

Its thanks to this type of very generous support that our organisation goes from strength to strength. Check out his blog, keep up to date of with where he’s at, or send him your well wishes here. Thanks Igor and good luck.

Igor Bilek will ride round Australia: photo by Malvin Knipe

What a fantastic day! We received around 35 bikes, some great online donations and signed up some really enthusiastic volunteers. Thanks to those who brought the day together and to the donors on the day, we’re now ready to pack 400 bikes into our first container and to send them to Namibia.

We’ll be out there again to collect bikes and pack the big mumma forty foot high cube container, on 31 March 2012. So come along donate your bike, or volunteer your skills. If you can’t make it along, think about getting a bike to Africa by making a $35 donation. Or just come for a visit, have a chat, and prepare some bikes. See ya there….

Sydney Bike collection site generously provided by Lendlease

This week a massive thanks goes out to Australian Ethical Investment who very generously donated $5,000 as part of their annual community grants program.

We’ll put this toward the cost of shipping to Namibia one of next year’s containers of bikes, tools, and spare parts. Once the container reaches Namibia the donation may also cover part of the training costs for bike mechanics who’ll run the bicycle empowerment center.

In Canberra Sonia has done a fantastic job collecting 41 bikes to contribute to the next shipment to Africa. Wonderful effort thanks Sonia.

If you’re in the Canberra area and you’d like to donate a bike click here. To make a donation to ship the bikes to Africa and sustain the workshop when it gets there click here. Also a big thanks to Doug and Tim for transferring bikes and making the big trek back to Sydney.

This year we’ve partnered with Lend Lease who’ve generously provided storage containers, volunteers to assist packing, a great mural, promotion through their intranet and newsletters and much more. Barangaroo is where we’ll prepare, collect bikes and load bikes into a shipping container ready for Africa. Click here to find out about Sydney Bike Collections.

A big thanks to the team in the Southern Highlands. They’ve managed to collect and prepare 196 bikes over the past year. They’ve also held trivia nights, sculpture competitions and worked with local organisations to raise enough funds to ship them to Africa.

Thanks to the guys at Goulburn Mens Shed we’re close to filling our next container, ready for shipping. They collected and prepared over 60 bikes over the past six months. Their motto is “Teaching old dogs new tricks”. We’re loving their latest trick.

This week we picked up the bikes with a truck generously donated to us, once again, by Southern Cross Rentals.

After doing some serious fundraising and using their awesome negotiation skills the crew from the Southern Highlands are now open for business. Click here to find the exact location in the Moss Vale area to donate that Mountain bike that’s still in working order but getting in your way.

Bicycle Portraits – Staying Alive from Bicycle Portraits on Vimeo.