One of two designated bicycles areas at Chitnetabunga Primary School.

Chitentabunga Basic School serves 471 students, grades 4 through 9. The school is located on hilly Zambian terrain, which in the past has made the average 6 km commute for students even more difficult.

However, according to the Bicycle Supervisory Committee Secretary, Iness Mutumbisha, the introduction of bicycles has greatly improved student’s attendance at school and reduced tardiness. Secretary Mutumbisha keeps record of all things BEEP and has been a valuable organizational asset to the school. She has set up two designated areas for student’s bicycles: one for those who attend the midmorning session and one for those who attend the afternoon session. This has helped to avoid congestion on the small campus. Many of the students have also personalized the backs of their bicycle racks in order to better keep track of their bikes.

Emma Makalambe, age 13 is one of the students at Chitentabunga who has benefited from the bicycle distribution. When asked about the challenges she faced before receiving her bicycle, Emma noted that the 6 km commute for her was very far, resulting in her frequent tardiness. Since receiving the bicycle, however, she is now coming early to school and ferrying her brother as well. She plans to continue her education and hopes to become a lawyer. Emma’s bicycle has also enabled her to go to the hammer mill to grind maize for her family and provided her access to the clinic when she was sick. As a result of her bicycle, she also has more time to participate in extra curricular activities such as reading, netball, drama, and dancing.

Another student who has benefitted from the World Bicycle Relief distribution is 15-year-old Fabias Nsowa. Like Emma, Fabias’ education was hindered by his 5 km commute to school. This distance often resulted in his tardiness. Fortunately, with his World Bicycle Relief bike, Fabias and his younger brother get to school on time. Fabias, enjoys reading, football, and drama, and hopes to become a driver after he finishes school in order to help provide for his family. When asked if there was anything else he wanted to say about his bicycle, he said, “I just want to say thank you to World Bicycle Relief for empowering me with a bicycle.”

Thanks to SRAM, BrakeThrough Media, Tomorrow Pictures and VERSUS, audiences across the U.S. will get a glimpse of World Bicycle Relief’s Bicycles for Educational Empowerment Program (BEEP) during the 2010 Tour de France. This spot was created by a team of passionate people who came together to share the story of bicyles changing lives in Sub Saharan Africa. Check it out on YouTube, www.worldbicyclerelief.org, or live on the VERSUS network during the Tour de France!

Only 50 spots left! Sign up now for the Wrigley Field Road Tour!

Join Chicago Cubs owner, Todd Ricketts and SRAM Executive VP and World Bicycle Relief President, F.K. Day for a beautiful north-shore century ride. Then, watch the Chicago Cubs play the Milwaukee Brewers at Miller Park and    support bicycle education programs in Zambia as well as safe cycling in Lakeview.

September 11, 2010

Start Time: 8:00am
Start Location: Wrigley Field, Chicago IL

Game Time: 6:10pm
Game Location: Miller Park, Milwaukee WI

Ride Fee: $300
$80 Registration | $220 Donation to World Bicycle Relief + Chicago Cubs Charities

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Ride Fee Includes:

• Ride Support
• Aid stations
• Lunch by Harry Caray’s
• Riding Jersey
• Event t-Shirt
• SRAM Swag Bag
• Water Bottle
• WBR Bicycle Bell
• Reserved seats for Cubs vs. Brewers at Miller Park
• Return transportation for you + your bike from Miller Park back to Wrigley Field
• Entry in our Standard Raffle

Fundraising Challenge:

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A group of Namonongo students smile alongside their bicycles.

At Namonongo Basic School, where the average student’s commute is 8km (about 5 miles), the importance of a child’s education is highly emphasized.  Headmaster Goodfellow N. Pinyolo works hard with the rural community to make sure that education, especially for girls, does not fall by the wayside. Mr. Pinyolo understands that some families in the community are barely able to fund their child’s education and simply cannot purchase the required school uniforms; he encourages those students to attend school in their regular clothes because he believes their education is important. During the school week, Mr. Pinyolo lends his WBR bicycle to one of his girl students who travels very far to school but started at Namonongo after all the bicycles had been distributed.

In the remote community served by Namonongo Basic School, there is a high risk of early marriage, especially for girls. Mr. Pinyolo described some cases in which the teachers and the Bicycle Supervisory Committee were able to intervene.

One such case concerns Elizabeth, who is 17 and in 8th grade. Before receiving the bicycle, she eloped with a fellow pupil from Namonongo. Her parents knew her bicycle would be redistributed if she did not return to school, so they contacted the teachers and the Bicycle Supervisory Committee to help intervene. The Committee called both Elizabeth’s and the boy’s parents to a meeting. The boy’s parents were hesitant to end the marriage, but the teachers and the Committee convinced them that this was in the best interest of both students. The intervention was successful, and the students have since returned to school to finish their education.

Meckilna, who is 16 and in 9th grade, was riding home recently when she was approached for marriage by an older man.  Aware of the dangers of HIV/AIDS and early marriage, she screamed for help. People from the community heard her and rushed to help; they got Meckilna and her bicycle away from the man, but he took off with her schoolbooks. When she notified her teacher what had happened, he found the man and returned her books to her. Despite this unfortunate incident, Meckilna wants to continue her education, and her bicycle is empowering her to do so. She hopes to become an engineer specializing in airplanes because she wants to travel and see other countries.

Snohomish Bicycles opens its doors to World Bicycle Relief.

Brian Collins, an employee at Snohomish Bicycles in Washington is not just riding miles…he’s riding for others…and he used his home store to do just that. Brian, who will soon be doing a long-distance ride from Seattle to Los Angeles, is conducting a World Bicycle Relief fundraiser in conjunction with his ride and, one of the many things he has done to give his efforts a boost, was hosting a movie night at Snohomish Bicycles to promote WBR and have some fun. This past Friday evening, Brian shared the World Bicycle Relief story with an enthusiastic crowd and aired a fantastic cycling movie while raising $600 for WBR. Brian is a wonderful example of our amazing contingency of folks using their love for recreational cycling to give back to communities in Africa where bicycles can be powerful tools in the fight against extreme poverty.

World Bicycle Relief thanks Brian for his dedication to The Power of Bicycles and invites you to do the same at your shop.

Students at the school (Kelvin and Chilesha are first two on the left).

Kenneth

David Kaunda Basic School serves grades 1 through 9.  Because the school is located in the Mikango Military Barracks, our WBR team was not able to go to the school itself. The school sent some students with the Secretary of the Bicycle Supervisory Committee to meet us at nearby Mikango High School. Two of the students in particular experienced a marked increase in quality of life as a result of receiving a bicycle.

Kelvin Sialanga is 17 years old and currently enrolled in grade 7. The distance from his home to Kenneth David Kaunda Basic School is 17 km – just over 10.5 miles. As a result, Kelvin used to be a weekly boarder at the school and sometimes had to stay with friends who lived closer because the distance was just too far to travel on a daily basis. Since he received the bicycle, the journey is more manageable and Kelvin no longer has to stay near school during the week. This is a huge help to his family, which includes 6 brothers and sisters and his grandparents who are the family’s primary care givers. The family uses the bicycle to go to the market to buy goods, to fetch water, to go to the grinding mill to grind maize, and to get to the clinic when a family member is sick. Kelvin is happy to continue his education because he hopes to become a doctor so that he can help others.

Chilesha Monde is 13 years old and in grade 8. She does not travel as far as Kelvin, but still has to cover a 7 km distance each way. This made coming to school quite difficult some days, which meant she often stayed home. Also, whenever she was ill, she was unable to go to the hospital because it was too hard to get there. Now that she has her WBR bicycle, she is able to attend school regularly and get herself or a family member to the clinic if necessary. Chilesha’s family has a farm that grows cabbages and carrots. Her mother sends Chilesha’s cousin on the bicycle to check on the crops and to sell them at the market as a source of income for the family and to help fund Chilesha’s education. Chilesha plans to finish school and hopes to become a journalist so that she can tell people what is happening in the world.

Before we started this trip, we were expecting different parts of the country to be VERY different. Even as we passed through the first few states, we had convinced ourselves that life would be completely different on the other side of the country. Looking back, this seems odd considering we have both spent time on the east coast and in the Midwest, but we were certain that we’d encounter completely different cultures everywhere we went.

It wasn’t until we had crossed the entire country that we realized just how similar people are from state to state. In fact, we’re guilty of lauding the country’s diversity on our blog. It seems particularly counterintuitive given how much people have said to us, both positive and negative, about people from other cities, counties, or states. Before we left, nearly everyone we knew warned us that what we were doing (or rather, where we were going) was particularly dangerous. In Texas, people routinely levied judgements on those from other parts of Texas, most of whom didn’t seem to have much direct experience with them.

The sad part is that most of this has been negative. By contrast, we have had nothing but positive experiences with people from all walks of life and all parts of the country. Sure, we run into people whose accents we simply can’t understand, but we can tell from the smiles on their faces that they’re trying to tell us something good. On several occasions we’ve found ourselves riding through seemingly seedy neighborhoods past barking pitbulls. Even in those places, people wave, smile, or nod to us as we ride by; a reassurance that they can tell we’re from out of town, but that we’re welcome there (even if the dogs are telling us otherwise).

WBR supporter, Amber Rais on her climb up the Grossglockner in Austria.

My bike changed me when __________________.

Was it the first time you rode without training wheels? The ride you took to and from school as a kid? The ride across the U.S. you just completed with a team of fellow med students? Was it your first time seeing a World Bicycle Relief bike in the field? Whatever your bike story is, it’s important to us. LEAVE US A COMMENT BELOW  with your story of how bicycles have radically changed you and your life.

Some community members make bricks for the new school space.

Lusungu Community School is the result of the combined efforts of parents and community leaders concerned about their children.  The community established the school in 2007 because travel to the next closest school requires crossing a busy tar road, and parents felt it was too dangerous for their young children. The closest government school is 14 km away – too far to make daily attendance realistic.  Today, Lusungu Community School serves more than 80 pupils from preschool through age 11.  The students meet in a one room church building; Headmaster Standwell Kajani is also the church’s pastor.

World Bicycle Relief bicycles have helped to facilitate community spirit and better education for the children of Lusungu Community School. Before the bicycle distribution, students were frequently absent. Now, the students who received bicycles attend daily, and they ferry the children who were too small to receive their own bicycles.  Teachers and Bicycle Supervisory Committee members use their bicycles to check on absent students and to take them home or to the clinic when they are sick. Veronica Chimbe, a committee member, ferries her grandson to and from school each day because he is too small to receive a bicycle of his own

Matthews Musunka, Chair of the Bicycle Supervisory Committee, uses his 7 years experience with Kulungula School to help Lusungu flourish.  Mr. Kajani, Mr. Musunka, and other community members expressed gratitude for their bicycles and described how they make the best of their limited resources. Parents and community members are constructing a new building next to the church so that the children will have their own place to learn.  Mr. Musunka and Headmaster Kajani work on the building themselves and have encouraged the whole community to help out.  Parents and community volunteers make 400 to 500 bricks per day in their spare time.  What the community lacks in funding they make up for with resourcefulness: they created their own brick mold from wood and used the local soil to build a kiln for making sturdier bricks.

Vote for World Bicycle Relief Today!

Thanks to all those who have already voted for World Bicycle Relief for the Nau Grant for Change program (G4C). G4C works to award individual and organizational design efforts with a $10,000 grant for innovative design. They seek to find beauty, performance, and sustainability in each nominee’s work. The deadline has been extended to July 6 and we need all the support we can get so PLEASE VOTE FOR WORLD BICYLE RELIEF AND SHARE THIS WITH YOUR FRIENDS AND COLLEAGUES!