Empowerment

Bicycles for Humanity, Melbourne is currently focused on the collection of disused bikes which are then sent to our partner BEN Namibia. We fill a shipping container with around 400-500 bikes and ship it to Africa.

Once received the container becomes a BEC (Bicycles Empowerment Center). The container is placed in a community in need, windows are cut into it and an extra roof put on to protect from the heat and it becomes a pre-fabricated bike work shop providing skills training, employment and business opportunities to the community.

Stocked with 400-500 bicycles, tools, spare parts and accompanied by comprehensive training in bicycle mechanics, it is designed to empower disadvantaged people and their communities with their own transport and their own means of maintaining it.

BEN Namibia are committed to the on going administration and management of these Empowerment Centres ensuring a sustainable and ongoing benefit that they bring.

The BEN Namibia, Okathitu update on a BEC will give you a great idea of how it works and the benefits derived.

Namibia Visit

Bicycles For Humanity, Melbourne’s Andy Gild recently visited Namibia with her family. Below is her account of the trip, the land and the need for sustainable transport solutions

In January 2009 my husband, Shane, and I were very fortunate to have visited Namibia with our 2 children, Ashlea (12) and Dean (10). We were able to see first hand how one of the biggest challenges facing the communities of this country is transport. Namibia is a vast land, with little villages spread out over huge distances.

On the roads are endless people making their way slowly by foot in extreme heat to collect water, get to their farms or get to school. Some trying to hitch a ride and often carrying heavy buckets or baskets. It was the few bicycles we passed that highlighted the desperate need for much more of this basic form of transport.

One of our main intentions was realised when we met a local family from a village called Okathitu who are behind the very first BEC in Namibia. Hilya and her father, father Lazarus, are wonderful, warm and caring people who are very involved in their local community, helping not only those people affected by AIDS, but also in the local orphanage, helping to feed and educate.

They explained how incredibly important the bicycles are to enable their own volunteers to reach into the community and assist with medical aid and even ambulance-type transport. We were told of how a bicycle donated to a young child enabled her to get to school, which in turn led her on a path to live in the capital city, Windhoek, and continue her studies.

This world is far from ours, in miles and development, but it is a wonderful, peaceful country, steadily making gains towards improving the lifestyles of its people. If you are able to help by donating an old bicycle , you will be changing the lives of individuals, families and even communities.

Andy Gild