Bawku District is one of the most isolated, arid, and poorest regions in Ghana.

The Peace Corps has made it a priority to focus its efforts in disadvantaged areas such as Bawku to more directly address the challenges of poverty, and has assigned 32-year-old Susan Rosely to work as a community development volunteer with the Community Welfare Foundation (COMWELF), a local private development agency. Since arriving in late 1999, Susan has assisted COMWELF to design and implement programs. From the beginning, Susan saw a few of the most successful small businesspeople owned heavy one-speed bicycles that they used for productive purposes, such as the carrying of goods for sale. Thus, Susan and COMWELF understood that bicycles were an economically and culturally appropriate means of transport locally.

However, the majority of the population could not afford these expensive imported items and continued to walk long distances to work, markets, schools, and health clinics.

In March 2000, Susan and COMWELF approached Pedals for Progress requesting a shipment of used bicycles and new spare parts and accessories, to capitalize an innovative project aiming to generate employment and improve access to work, markets, and health and education services in the Bawku region. Such an undertaking is proposed to be financially self-sustaining after the initial shipment, from the local sale of bicycles.

In her correspondence, Susan told us of a young, unnamed Ghanaian woman who Susan thought typical of the potential beneficiaries of Pedals for Progress assistance. Susan writes:

"Following an exchange of correspondence and submission of a proposal by COMWELF, Pedals for Progress shipped its first container to COMWELF in June 2000.

The costs of the initial shipment were donated by the Friends of Ghana, and a variety of individual
Returned Peace Corps Volunteers.