With your donation, you make it possible for Pedals for Progress to continue with its unique economic development programs. P4P helps people get to work using recycled bicycles as a source of basic transportation, a source of trade, and a means for employment and enterprise.
Here is the P4P page at Charity Navigator.
By Mathew Yawe
Spring 2022 Newsletter
On behalf of the Mityana Open Troop Foundation, I have compiled a progressive report for November 2021 to May 2022.
Mityana Open Troop Foundation is a registered Community Based Organization, with a Vocational Skills Training Centre, which recruits and trains vulnerable youths, mostly young girls formerly selling sex for survival and girls expelled from schools due to teenage pregnancies. We teach our students sustainable vocational skills. Since the inception of vocational skills training at our centre in 2007, a total of over 915 have graduated. Some got employed while others set up their own workshops. Every graduate of our program is given a sewing machine from Sewing Peace, USA. Without equipment, the graduation certificate is no help, as 90% of graduates can’t afford tools.
Students are trained for 2 years in Sewing & Fashion Design, Hair Dressing & Weaving, Motor Vehicle & Cycle Mechanics, Carpentry & Joinery, Metal Fabrication, or Agriculture & Animal Husbandry.
Every year, there are 3 training terms of 3 months each; for each term the centre recruits whoever wishes to join.
Achievements:
Rose Namukasa is a 2013 graduate of our project, a single mother aged 35 years looking after her 7 children.
She makes school uniforms. She earns an average of US $3 per day, which she uses to pay school fees for 3 children, and to pay rent for the room where she works.
Four of her children are not studying because she can’t afford their school fees.
She informed me that in the morning hours she goes into the garden with the 4 children who are not studying and grows food for survival, then at 12 noon she goes to her sewing shop.
She further said that there are some poor seasons where she doesn’t earn any coin!
John Mary Mayanja is a 2010 project graduate, aged 55 years with 2 families of 12 African children.
He formerly had a small retail shop which was not working well. He admired sewing skill so he decided to join our project in 2009, graduating in 2010. He is now a supplier of uniforms to his area schools; he also has other customers in the community.
He earns per day an average of US $4, which he uses to pay rent for the room where he works and to pay school fees for his children.
He has land where he and his children practice mixed farming.
John Mary is proud of the Mityana Open Troop Foundation, which taught him his sewing skills. He extends his happiness and appreciations to the Sewing Peace Project USA for the sewing machine he got when he graduated from through the Mityana Open Troop Foundation Project. The machine has been performing well ever since he got it.
Exchange rate: 1 US Dollar (USD) to 3,350 Uganda Shillings (UGX)
| November 2021 to May 2022 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Income (USD) | Expenditure (USD) | |||
| 1. | School fees from trainees | $2,353 | Salaries for instructors and support staff | $1,176 |
| 2. | Sales of sewing machines | $588 | Sewing machine Customs taxes, Mombasa taxes, clearing & handling, storage, transportation to Mityana | $1,000 |
| 3. | Sewing & fashion products, embroidering services, school uniforms | $147 | Trainee feeding | $851 |
| 4. | Carpentry workshop products | $206 | Training working materials | $600 |
| 5. | Government of Uganda, youths skilling program support | -Nil- | Electricity bills for school, carpentry, sewing shop | $421 |
| 6. | Kolping Mityana Womens Project, 5 Vulnerable Orphanage school fees support | $500 | Computer services & stationary | $50 |
| 7. | Fields of Life Orphanage school fees support | $147 | Sewing Show Room & Carpentry Workshop premise Renting | $597 |
| 8. | Unbound Kampala Ltd Vulnerable Orphanage school fees support | $152 | Firewood | $147 |
| 9. | Mildmay Uganda. School fees for vulnerable girls |
-Nil- | Condolence support to teachers & students | $88 |
| 10. | Donation for Janome embroidery machine from Rotarian Chris Young of Australia | $1,260 | Sewing machine servicing | $44 |
| Compound slashing / maintaining | $60 | |||
| Operational license | $59 | |||
| Pay as you earn Ugandan tax for our project & staff | $100 | |||
| TOTAL: | $5,353 | $5,193 | ||
Therefore, the project has made a profit of US $160 from November 2021 to May 2022.
In conclusion, on behalf of the Mityana Open Troop Foundation, I extend our sincere thanks to the following great friends / partners, who have been always so supportive to our Ugandan project, even during the Covid-19 pandemic:
Mr. Chris Eldridge, UK; Mr. & Mrs. Colin Neil Dippie and Jane Louise Dippie; Mr. Nino Ardizz and M/s. Madison Ardizzi; Rotarian Ivonne Reilly Sencebey, USA; Rotarian Chris Young of Australia.
I also extend our thanks to Mr. David Schweidenback, President of Sewing Peace, and the generous communities of the USA, who have been donating high-quality refurbished sewing machines to our needy Ugandan communities. Please, the used sewing machines which seem unimportant in the USA have uplifted our communities, changing people’s lives by creating a daily source of income. Thanks to all the volunteers involved in the collection of sewing machines and bicycles.
‘’The Good You Do To Others, Automatically Comes Back To You Unknowingly’’
Yours,
Mathew Yawe
Executive Director Mityana Open Troop Foundation
By FIDESMA
Spring 2022 Newsletter
[Editor’s note: Our longest-running partnership is with FIDESMA, in Guatemala, where we’ve shipped more than 12,000 bikes since 1999. Their most recent container arrived in December 2021: Guatemala #22. Below is an update on their ongoing projects.]
Support for the Disabled: wheelchairs, crutches, walkers, and orthopedic beds.All these projects are due to the support of national and international institutions such as Pedals for Progress, and to the profits we earn in the FIDESMA bicycle project, Ecolobici.
By Dave Schweidenback
Spring 2022 Newsletter
Dear Supporters of Pedals for Progress and Sewing Peace,
This organization has come a long way since a cold day in February 1991 when I saw a few bikes sitting next to a garbage can and decided to do something about it. It has been an amazing journey, literally. P4P has given me the opportunity to visit multiple countries in the pursuit of stronger partnerships.
This whole idea came about because I was a Peace Corps volunteer in the small town of Sucúa, Ecuador, in the late 1970s. My landlord, Cesar Peña, had the only bike. Everybody else walked everywhere they went, all the time. I was always so envious of his wheels, but there were no bikes that you could buy.
Then, more than a decade later, I saw those bikes next to the garbage can and it just made sense to connect the dots. I could get a whole bunch together and send them back. I’m amazed at how naïve I was. It was not that easy and actually Ecuador refused them. But I persevered because it just made sense. Save the landfills here while creating greater prosperity overseas. And it made sense to other people like the Ernie Simpsons and Bob Gleasons of the world, and all who came to my aid.
It has been a privilege to be the President of Pedals for Progress all these years. This will be the last president’s message from me, as Alan Schultz will be taking over the Presidency in August. I will be stepping back, acting as VP, International Programs.
Please continue your support of Pedals for Progress and Alan and his team. I am quite sure that Alan will do a fantastic job. It’s a lot of work moving tons of steel and that’s what it is when you talk about thousands of bikes. The domestic operation needs someone much younger than I am who can physically manage the loading of the containers and the processing of hundreds of bicycles. Alan will be able to bring a new vitality into the organization and now that hopefully the worst of the Covid pandemic is behind us, we hope to aggressively move forward, increasing production so that we can add more overseas partnerships in the coming years.
Thank you for everything. It’s been great.
Dave
By Derrick Pitts
Spring 2022 Newsletter
[Editor’s note: Pedals for Progress is happy to announce a new partnership in Belize led by Derrick Pitts under the project name “P4P Belize”, an extension of his existing community outreach program. Belize, like many coastal countries in Central America, relies heavily on tourism to fuel its economy. Beyond the breathtaking beaches, coastal reefs, and sandy shores that attract an onslaught of tourists every year, the forgotten cities and urban areas are being overrun with poverty that has spawned violence, crime, and civil unrest. The country’s already fragile economy took a massive hit when 50% of its population automatically became unemployed when international tourism came to a screeching halt due to the coronavirus pandemic.
This new partnership will provide the people of Belize City with used bicycles and sewing machines donated by generous individuals in the United States. Access to bicycles will allow people to expand their reach within their communities to access jobs that may otherwise be too far to get to on foot thus improving unemployment rates. P4P Belize will also improve upon their numerous community outreach programs that include food services, educational support courses, medical assistance, and mentorship programs. P4P Belize intends to focus on both the individual and family unit as a way to maximize their impact in people’s lives. Below is an introduction from Derek talking about the challenges found in his country and the goals set by P4P Belize.]
Greeting from the Nation of Belize,
For some this might be the very first-time hearing about this nation and for others the nation of Belize is the perfect vacation destination. But for many, the true reality of this nation is unknown and tucked away behind our beautiful beaches, luminous forest, and large barrier reef with great diving.
Here is some information on this small nation in Central/Latin America and the Caribbean. In all of Latin America we are the only nation with English as our primary language; we were once a colony of the British empire. Our country to the west and south is bordered by Guatemala, to the north by Mexico, and to the east by the beautiful Caribbean Sea. Belize is considered a “vegetable salad” because of the diversity of culture. Our cultures include Creole, Mestizo, Garifuna, Mayan, and Hispanic with a little of every other culture mixed in. Even with our diversity we are still a nation with a population of just 400,000 people.
Approximately 50% of Belize’s population are children and youth below the age of nineteen. A large percentage of this population is concentrated in the urban ghettos of the south-side of Belize City, specifically in the Port Loyola area. Many of these children live in poverty and are exposed to violence, crime, and civil unrest. This environment has contributed to increases in:
Little emphasis is being made to reach these children and youth. They are considered criminals and uneducated. Because of this social inequity the children and youth on the south-side have limited access to legitimate forms of self-sustainment and employment opportunities.
As Pedals for Progress Belize we exist to transform communities one life at a time. Our aim is to reach out to the “least of these” and provide hope of a better tomorrow. You may ask how we do this? Our strategy is as follows.
We reach out to children in these impoverished communities and offer holistic support.
We have a food service. Many of these kids come from single-parent homes where the mother is the sole breadwinner. By providing meals we are not only helping these kids to be nourished but also taking some of the burden off the mom.
We offer educational support. With the recent pandemic, international tourism came to a complete halt. This affected our country drastically, causing 50% unemployment in our population. This had a negative effect on the education system as many parents did not have the funds to keep their kids in school. Through our organization we were able to provide scholarships, tutoring and necessary school supplies. We have an ongoing educational program, as we firmly believe that a quality education can break generational poverty.
Medical assistance: In many of these communities there is limited to no medical care being offered to the less fortunate. Our organization has a mobile clinic that goes into these communities and offers medical assistance, especially to the young, providing vitamins and necessary hygiene supplies.
Mentorship: Children and young people need positive guidance to navigate some of the realities they are currently facing. We have peer helpers that teach these youths life-skills and principles to help them succeed.
We quickly realized that many of the kids felt loved, accepted, and supported in our programs, but when they got home they went back to what they were trying to escape. We saw that it was crucial for us to engage the parents. One way we were able to do that is through economic empowerment: providing a sustainable platform for single mothers to gain an income. These platforms include sewing, jewelry making, cooking, and craft. This has changed the dynamics in the home.
Our hope is that, as we see transformation in the lives of these individuals, they won’t move out of their communities but rather be a part of the transformation of their communities. Our goal is to change these communities through our development program, where we build houses, community centers, community gardens, and parks.
Through the new partnership with Pedals for Progress USA we will be able to do even more in the three areas of our strategy. We will provide part-time jobs for at-risk youths and single moms. We will also develop our sewing program and teach individuals how to sew and make an income. Through our partnership we will be able to provide these individuals with bicycles to help them with transportation to get around and gain an income.
Spring 2022 Newsletter
I am Catherine. My two colleagues in the photos are Akouwavi and Améyo. We are apprentice seamstresses and we are part of a program that our promoter calls Youth Socioeconomic Empowerment, a program that pays the costs of the training contracts and then, at the end of our apprenticeship, provides us with sewing machines to allow us to open our own workshops. A few weeks ago, we received our machines and are already working. It is a great joy to see these photos of ourselves.
With these sewing machines, we will work and save money, take care of ourselves, take care of our families and send our children to school. We have finally reached the end of our training and here we are with our sewing machines as promised. These machines are essential tools for our small businesses. All this is possible thanks to the support of the DRVR-TOGO and its partner Pedals for Progress / Sewing Peace. It is because of you, the donors, that our dreams have become realities.
We are appealing to all P4P loyal partners and donors: Used sewing machines, bikes, and other tools as far as the eye can see are left in your garages, basements, stores, and offices. Donating them to P4P will help people and save lives in communities thousands of miles away from you on the other side of the world. Many thanks to you, David, and all your tireless P4P team for your dedication to social causes.
I am Essenam. I am an apprentice seamstress. I would like through this little note to express my gratitude to DRVR-TOGO, Pedals for Progress, and all their partners and donors who contribute from near and far to help support vulnerable populations all over the world and as well as our communities here in Togo. I have not been to school like many young girls of my age have, so I decided to learn a trade, and the choice fell on sewing, a trade of my dreams since childhood.
Before the DRVR-TOGO bicycle program, I had to leave the house very early in the morning. I would arrive at the workshop late and tired, and then come back late at night, when travel is risky.
With this nice bike in the photo, I now arrive on time at the workshop to continue my learning with a lot of determination. Words fail me and all my family to thank the American donors to the P4P organization. Once again thank you for everything. Through my voice, I appeal to P4P and its partners to continue this program again and again to help other people in different areas of need.
My name is Emefa and I am 14 years old. I am a student in the first-year class in high school. For the 2020–2021 school year, officials from DRVR-TOGO came to our establishment with a program to cover tuition fees and supplies and support to promote the education of orphaned and vulnerable children, especially young girls. I was the first in my class for the end-of-year exam. To continue my study in high school, I have to travel impossible kilometers to go to my classes, because there is no college in my village. You have to go to the town next door instead. With this bike from DRVR-TOGO and P4P, I could not hide my joy and that of my entourage. We sincerely thank you. My wish is that this program continues so that other students can benefit from it.
My name is Ania and I am a widow with two children: Afiwa is ten years old and Komlan is six. I sell boiled meat on the side of the road in my neighborhood to feed and take care of my children and especially to send them to school. Every morning I have to leave my activity and bring my children to school and pick them up in the evening at sunset.
Some time ago a client told me about a DRVR-TOGO bicycle program and a child who had already benefited. I went to inquire about the program, and to my great surprise my two children got their own bikes. Now they leave the house every morning and came back in the evening after class without difficulty.
My two children and I say thank you to you the donors, to P4P, its president, David, and all his staff. We also offer a big thank-you to DRVR-TOGO here with us in our community.
Spring 2022 Newsletter
Pedals for Progress would like to congratulate Warren County Habitat for Humanity (WCHFH) for celebrating 10 years of service and operation of their HFH ReStore. Habitat for Humanity is dedicated to the pursuit of building homes, advocating for fair housing policy, and providing resources for home repair for local families in need. One of their programs is their Habitat for Humanity ReStore where they recycle and resell at affordable rates donated furniture and appliances that would otherwise be destined for landfills. The ReStore has been serving the area for ten years and has been a fantastic resource for the community since its inception.
We are fortunate to have a close relationship with Warren County Habitat for Humanity; they have been a collection partner since 2018. Our relationship is due to the dedication of Daryl Detrick, a volunteer with the WCHFH and a faculty member of the Warren Hills Regional High School who also serves on our board of directors. Thanks to Daryl, we have been able to use the ReStore as a site to collect a percentage of bikes donated by Warren County residents. Daryl graciously uses his own barn to store the bikes to help kick off his yearly collection with students from the Warren Hills Regional High School Computer Science Club. This collaboration has allowed Daryl and his volunteers to collect a substantial number of bikes prior to the main collection. This year on Sunday, May 15th they collected 153 bikes and 53 sewing machines!
In pursuit of continuing service to their community, the WCHFH recently had the grand opening of their new community center where residents, clubs, and groups can rent the space for meetings or events. It has been a successful year for them as they hope to use this space to connect the community and broaden the scope of their mission of giving back to residents. The new space has a rich history and has been fully rebuilt and repurposed to serve the community.
Warren County Habitat for Humanity does amazing work helping families and individuals in need, not merely in the square mile of Washington, New Jersey, but across distant corners of the globe. We’d like to encourage you to check out their cause. The commitment and generosity displayed by their program and volunteers are infectious. Cheers to another great 10 years!
By Alan Schultz
Spring 2022 Newsletter
In November 2021, Dave Schweidenback and I went on a trip to Arusha, Tanzania, to make a visit to our partners at the Norbert and Friends Missions. While Pedals for Progress has made shipments to Tanzania in the past, our relationship with Norbert and Friends is still fresh, starting in the fall of 2019. We took the opportunity to meet Norbert and his dedicated team, give advice, and to learn from them on both a professional and cultural level.
Arusha was busy. Fast moving taxis, buses, trucks, and motorcycles dominate the roads. The biggest takeaway was the sheer number of people who walked among these fast-moving vehicles. Everyone walks. You’d often see small children, five or six years old, walking with their much younger siblings in large groups. Mothers walk with babies on their backs. Marching squads of school children in matching clothes rush to and from school. Even along desolate, secluded roads you would pass people every mile, wondering how they got there. The number of bicycles was high, and it’s clear why bicycles are important – the pace of living is fast, and you need to keep up to make a living.
There is so much activity, so much movement, that you need a smart way to keep up. The bicycle fills this need. It shrinks the massive size of the country and makes distance more manageable. You instantly see the benefits when passing school children miles away from their schools. You see how the further you get from the main city, the more life gets stretched out. The doctor is further, schools are further, markets are further, everything is further away, yet the need to reach these destinations remains.
Moving along the roads you notice that nearly every home is transformed into a storefront during the day. Tin roofs cover the cement buildings, many open to the street, so you can get a glimpse of what’s inside. Hairdressers, art sellers, convenience stores, grocers, food vendors, clothing stores, carpenters, masons. It seemed that all business was done inside or at the doorstep of someone’s home. This began to excite me; I wanted the chance to meet some of these people who ran these shops, especially those associated with Norbert and Friends Missions.
We met with Norbert and his team several times during our trip. We were able to talk about our organizations and exchange expectations, problems, and plans. Seeing their bicycle operation was an incredible experience. Their bike shop was like many of the shops along the main roads. It was modest, bare, but getting the job done. They had a handful of bikes on display with another 20 or so in storage as they were getting down to the last of their shipment. This was good to see, as it means the 444 bikes we shipped in July 2021 have been successfully distributed.
What blew me away most was recognizing some of the bicycles that I had a direct hand in loading. There was even a small motor we shipped that was donated by an individual at Faith Lutheran Church in New Providence, New Jersey! After making the long journey, standing there in the middle of their shop in Tanzania was an impressive reminder of how far our goods travel.
As we started to meet people, the significance of what we do continued to bloom. One of the groups associated with Norbert and Friends Missions is Master’s Men Africa, a religious men’s group focused on bringing awareness to mental health among men in Tanzania and Kenya. They advocate for removing the stigma of talking about mental health among men and they bring awareness to the high suicide rate of men throughout Africa.
I spoke with a new graduate of the group named Abura Markson from Uganda. We shared stories and spoke about our organizations. He was very interested in hearing about Pedals for Progress and happy to know that we were working so closely with Norbert. Talking with him made me realize a nuanced and overlooked aspect of the P4P mission. Poverty is a tremendous weight that people bear and deal with, in a multitude of ways. The emotions associated with poverty, such as shame, helplessness, and depression, can well and bubble within a person and across a community. Africa has the highest suicide rate in the world. Whatever the reasons may be, there is no doubt that extreme poverty has something to do with it. It was in that moment talking to Abura that I realized what we are doing could be saving people from taking their own lives, through the simple act of donating a bicycle.
Joel, our main point of contact with Norbert and Friends, and Sanai, an employee of Norbert’s, graciously took us around the city of Arusha and the surrounding areas, to introduce us to some of the recipients of our sewing machines.
One of the first people we met who received a Sewing Peace machine was a woman named Sarah. Her small sewing studio is in the center of Arusha several levels up inside a multi-use apartment building. The small, dimly lit room, six by twelve feet, overflowing with fabric, was a sure signal of a hard-working individual. Sanai translated for us and retold bits of her story. She has been sewing for six years and since then has been able to put her children through school. Her four children are either now enrolled, or graduated university. She stays busy by making custom dresses, producing two or three elaborate dresses per day.
Access to electricity is the main challenge brought up by everyone we visited, Sarah being the first to mention it. The machines that are donated to us are mostly electric machines, and access to reliable electricity is simply something that the infrastructure of Tanzania cannot maintain. There is access but it’s sparse, as it will frequently shut off without warning with no telling when it will return. Manual treadle machines are great but older women like Sarah, who work long hours behind the machine, feel tremendous strain on their knees. Sarah mentioned how she likes to alternate to utilize the moments of electricity and to give her joints a rest.
Sarah also told us about the challenge of finding specific and specialized machines and attachments. At our collections we often say, “if we get it, they get it.” Sewing Peace simply does not have the capacity to seek out specific machines like overlock machines, which are highly sought after by independent seamstresses. These machines are highly desirable but relatively rare at our collections. At our most efficient we try to send at least two of these machines with every pallet of Sewing Peace sewing machines. However, that only accounts for two out of seventy-two, and even that we cannot guarantee.
We moved a little further outside of Arusha, passing a road-side bike stand where we took a moment to stretch our legs and talk bikes. This shop at the crossroads of two main roads was relatively large, with a good range of quality bikes. We took the moment to explain to Joel and Sanai about bicycle quality differences so they could price P4P bikes accordingly. Our partners must be able to provide a fair range of prices, while also maximizing their profits by selling quality bikes to those that can afford them.
About 45 minutes outside of Arusha, we met a second sewing machine recipient, named Rachel, who has been running her shop within a busy market area for five years. She commented on how she loves the quality of her Sewing Peace machine but still runs into the same problem operating an electric machine on an unpredictable power grid. She works from the center of her small shop that has a counter with various sewing notions enclosed in a glass case. The back three walls have shelves filled with hygienic products, larger spools of thread, and a large assortment of fabric for sale.
Later, we met Danielle, Norbert’s wife, who has been running a small shop in their neighborhood for the past two years. Her shop is very similar to Rachel’s, as she sells various goods surrounding her sewing machine in the middle of her shop. She mostly uses her shop as a convenience store for the neighborhood, selling soap, candy, cooking oil, and other goods. She uses her sewing machine to supplement shop income. She specializes in embroidered cloth used as dining mats or decoration. It is incredibly impressive as she uses a basic sewing machine to embroider flowers and other designs on colorful fabric. She takes custom orders for dresses and other commissioned design work.
It’s incredible to see firsthand how these women have created a life around one single machine. Hours upon hours of dedication have allowed them to build sturdy businesses around a specialized skill. It’s inspiring to see how they navigate problems beyond their control, all while continuing their enterprises. They either switch machines or find other ways to make money in the off time. Our machines donated by individuals in the United States end up in the hands of truly powerful businesswomen.
We left Tanzania feeling extremely satisfied. We have confidence in the Norbert and Friends Missions as they showed a high level of motivation and sense of urgency to supply their community with bicycles and sewing machines. We are excited to continue our relationship with them and to continue to supply them with the used bicycles and sewing machines donated by our generous donors throughout the tri-state area. The support we receive from our donors, volunteers, and organizations in the United States lifts the lives of others by helping build business, improve mental health, provide reliable transportation, and give hope and ambition to those who eagerly need a helping hand.