Boca de Mao, Centro de Trabajo Popular (CTP)


Yeni José is thirteen years old, the son of Haitian immigrants. He is in
his second year at the Boca de Mao elementary school. He earned his 10-speed
bicycle in an Earn-A-Bike program at Taller Internacional, spending a month
practicing basic bike repair skills and passing various requirements before
being awarded the bike. He says he uses his bike to do errands for his mother
and sometimes to go work doing day-labor on local farms.

"It's good to have the bike because I can get things done quickly", said Yeni.
The Earn-A-Bike course taught him skills such as changing tires, patching tubes,
adjusting and overhauling hubs, and adjusting brakes. He said, "If my bike has
something loose, I fix it myself. When I get a flat tire, I patch the tube. When my
brakes need to be adjusted, I can do it."

Yeni spends several hours a day on his bike. Sometimes during school vacations
he spends entire days riding around Boca de Mao with his friends.
Though they live in a community where people often have to sell or pawn
their possessions when money is tight, his mother says,
"We're never going to sell this bicycle".

Centro de Trabajo Popular (CTP) trains Dominican and Haitian youth in bicycle
mechanics and small business skills while supplying affordable transportation to
farmworkers, industrial laborers, and tradespeople in and around Boca de Mao,
north-central Dominican Republic.

District 4060, Rotary International
MUDE, Constanza, Dominican Republic