PASS (Programii Alternativave Sociale Stimuluese, Social Stimulating Alternative Program) was established in 2002 with the goal of encouraging community action and raising public awareness of local social and environmental issues in the Albanian capital city of Tirana. PASS activities include operating a Welcome Center for families in need, involving local residents in resolving community problems through its Volunteer Action Movement, supporting the AKSES Program to foster the education and employment of rural youth, aiding the transition from school to work through the Employment Office, and facilitating youth community engagement through the Civil Youth Project.

With help from Pedals for Progress and the George Soros Open Society Foundations in Albania (OSFA), PASS established a Tirana Community Bicycle program, including the bike-sharing program Ecovolis.

Ecovolis

Ecovolis (EcoBike) is a bike-sharing program created by PASS in Tirana, Albania. Ecovolis promotes ecological transportation by giving Tirana cleaner air, adding a civic European practice that helps in the economic, social, and environmental development of our community.

Not only will Ecovolis provide jobs for workers maintaining and managing the bicycles, but the bikes themselves will help reduce the social and economic isolation of suburban and rural communities by providing dedicated transportation from the margins of Tirana to the center. An additional effect of the program will be to raise awareness among citizens of the bicycle as a fun, healthy, and environmentally sound method of transportation.

For more information:

• Click here to see a P4P report on Ecovolis from July 2012.
• For a P4P report on the bike program in its early days (April 2011), click here.
• Click here to see the Ecovolis facebook page.
• This blogspot on Ecovolis has great photos of the bikes and the people who work on them.

by Patricia Hamill
Fall 2014 InGear

Just recently, we received some positive updates from Ened Mato, CEO of Ecovolis in Albania. He announced that there have been 4 successful projects put in motion that were made possible through our partnership with them.

The first project he told us about was the development of an entrepreneurial endeavor called Trasta o Nona (The Sack is the Best). With the 20 sewing machines P4P was able to ship to them, 5 disadvantaged young people gained employment making cloth bags to replace the heavily depended on plastic bags from stores. In three months, 3,000 bags were sold. Even better is the fact that their overhead so far is 0 since the material comes from coffee companies and donated clothing.

The second success story is about a movement called Release Lanes or the Free Bike Lanes Movement that was started by thousands of bicycle enthusiasts in Tirana. They are actively protesting the lack of bike lanes and poor driver awareness that the cyclists must deal with daily. Funding from P4P’s involvement was the catalyst for this activism and all participants readily acknowledge our part in their cause.

As most of you know, not all of the bicycles shipped elsewhere go solely to new owners to use. In some cases, as with Ecovolis, the cycles are sold to the public and then the funds collected are used for improving the lives of the local population. For instance, the first $7,000 (USD) earned from a bicycle sale was directly transformed into something called Ecological Gardens. Five public gardens in Tirana that were languishing from neglect, now have solar panels installed, parking for bicycles, and recycling receptacles. All make these locations cleaner and more relaxing now.

Ened also informed us that some funds collected in April from bike sales was put to use building small freestanding “libraries” in some of the parks and playgrounds in Tirana. Children are able to take a book out of the little library and then return it for another. Lastly, some of the bikes at the time of the sale were reserved for the children’s daycare center Shtwpiza e Ngjyrave (House of Colors) so that the little ones would have more options for playtime.

As their web site states, Ecovolis was created to be “ . . . a program that will forever change the way people perceive [Tirana], how they experience and perceive transportation, creating a more vibrant city, a place where people want to work and live with a quality and entertaining environment.” In these days of reinventing ourselves and putting concerted effort into recycling all that we can, it’s always gratifying to learn how the donated bicycles and sewing machines from the States become more than used cycles or machines elsewhere. They become clean energy sources, earth friendly bags made by newly employed people, books for children, and even garden plots. It might be time to take a trip to see Tirana’s improvements in person.

by Ened Mato
Spring 2014 InGear

How nice it is to donate a smile! It is a grim fact that some Albanians face the indifference of passers by and the silence of fellow citizens in general. Many children are mired in a cycle of hopeless days without experiencing the joys of a real childhood and, confused, stare straight into the future without a sense of hope. Nearly 120 of these children at the Colourful Lodge and its twin centers, every day, find not only hospitality, accommodation and a warm meal, but above all the care, love and why not, the image of what they lack and miss: Home!

In the framework of the initiative which has already made possible the delivery of 100 bicycles in 10 similar centers in Albania, the New Year’s holidays at the Colourful Lodge came under the rhythm of chiming bicycle bells that were donated by Ecovolis in collaboration with Pedals for Progress. Ecovolis representatives spent the holidays with these wonderful children, helping them learn to pedal the colorful bicycles that they, before, could only watch go by on the noisy thoroughfares of the capital city. The little ones learned that use of these bicycles created an excellent opportunity to secure a beautiful, clean, green and friendly environment to live in, quite different from the dusty wild roads of the city they wander every day.

This is not all. The people from Ecovolis also promised that they would work with the children every week, to continue helping them ride safely and have fun. For these children it was wonderful discovering that bicycles from Pedal for Progress were previously used by their American peers, whose stories and names were shared.

It was so miraculous to see the smile on a young boy named Zino. He was the first to learn to ride a bike and even swore that one day he would become the fastest cyclist in the world. Little Izidora, who spent the day cleaning the windshields of “four-wheels” vehicles as they call them, said that she loved the bike exactly because it did not deliver those “disgusting fumes and that disturbing noise.” A child named Abel immediately began calculating the increased number of packages sold, if he was to rely on his own bike instead of his tiny legs.

One of the girls, Mira, she begged for one last ride and said she would have loved to have her own bicycle so she would have the opportunity to visit her mother during the day and show her her earnings. When she was told that there would be no “last ride” because those bicycles would be staying at the Colourful Lodge, her happiness was immense. Her felicity was shared among Adrian, Ihsira, Ledio, Daklea, Oriada, Teuta, Laert , Esdalin, Landi, Artemis, Donna and dozens of other children, whose smiles were the most precious gift for the representatives of Ecovolis. “This is one of those cases, when you start making a gift, but you are the one receiving the most wonderful gift of all. To us this great gift was the smile of these kids,” Ened Mato, the Director of Ecovolis said. “Ecovolis in collaboration with Pedals for Progress is determined to continue this initiative. So far we have donated 100 bicycles in 10 centers and we are merely getting started. We will make other children smile by riding bicycles. And it’s not just about entertainment, but also presenting to them the vision of a beloved city, clean, and safe, since they are precisely the ones who walk on these streets every day.”

It is great discovering that besides the gift of a smile, there has been bestowed upon these children a chance for a new world view—a new, achievable dream for those who all they have had are dreams. All this from the presence of a simple bicycle. In the mean time, they are riding—and smiling—without even knowing that this may be may be a ride towards the future.

Dear David,

This Christmas we donated another 20 bicycles to “Shtwpiza e Ngjyrave”, “House of Colors”. This house is a kids’ center that hosts more than 120 children every day. These children are in a “street situation”, working and begging. “Make them smile” is the campaign of bike donations. This is the seventh kids’ center P4P bicycles have supported, with more than 100 children’s bicycles, used by more than 600 poor, abandoned children. Our volunteers have scheduled every Wednesday to spend 1 hour at these centers to teach them cycling and have a good time together. Yes, together we can “make them smile again”.

Best wishes for 2014,

Sincerely

Ened

by Joseph Matar
Fall 2013 InGear

Pedals for Progress’ partnership with the Social Stimulating Alternative Programs (SSAP) in Albania has led to the founding of a number of initiatives that have not only bettered people’s lives, but the country’s environment as well. The first of these was the Ecovolis bike-sharing system—based in the country’s capital of Tirana—which helps to circulate donated bicycles throughout Albania. An extension of this system, the Ecovolis Service, has built up a countrywide reputation for its reliability in the repair and maintenance of bikes.

There is also the Eco Bicycle Shop, the biggest bicycle shop in Albania. In under two years, the shop has repaired, sold, and put around 2000 bikes back on the streets of Tirana, as well as other urban and rural areas. Furthermore, the shop provides training on the repairing and selling of P4P-donated bicycles to young people, thereby preparing them for employment.

One of the major goals of the SSAP is to provide jobs for members of communities in need and, so far, the SSAP has employed approximately 50 people, many of whom are students, to assist in the operation of its various services. Aside from repairing and selling bikes, 10 students earn money riding advertisement-toting bikes around for SSAP’s newest venture, Green Advertising. These used bikes have been modified to function as mobile advertisements for companies who have embraced this new, economical, and environmentally-friendly method of advertising.

Another of the SSAP’s most recent projects that seeks to improve environmental conditions in Albania’s capital is called “I Recycle.” Typically, a method of survival for the hundreds of struggling families of the Roma community is to search through public garbage bins in order to find and collect paper, plastic, and aluminum. They then take this recyclable waste to be exchanged for a very low profit. Commonly, this process means that much of the unrecyclable waste is removed from the bins and left to scatter about the streets.

The Roma people need bicycles to transport the goods they collect as well as to efficiently check all the bins in a given area. To accomplish this, they either share a bike, using it in shifts, or, unfortunately, resort to stealing bicycles from the Ecovolis bike-sharing system. Those unable to procure a bicycle instead opt to search the tons of garbage disposed of daily in landfills. Frequently, this job is left to the Roma children, who chase the garbage trucks as soon as they are spotted, in an effort to be the first to get a chance find recyclables in the trash. Perhaps it goes without saying that these children are not attending school.

In response to these problems, the SSAP came up with “I Recycle,” a multi-part, long-term solution. First, over 100 bicycles were donated to the Roma community in Tirana, markedly reducing the number of bicycle thefts as well as moving toward eliminating the need for children to chase garbage trucks and make visits to landfills. Second, to put an end to all of the digging around in bins and to reduce the amount of litter on the streets, the SSAP manufactured and distributed color-coded garbage bin structures around Tirana. Each of the structures is divided into four bins: one for paper, one for plastic, one for aluminum, and one for other waste. With their new bicycles and the recyclables now already properly divided up, the Roma people can make their collections more quickly and simply, thus increasing their incomes.

The eventual goal, however, is to systemize this practice and provide the Roma people with long-term occupations. Working with the municipality of Tirana, the SSAP has begun this process by employing the Roma and providing them with cargo bicycles specifically constructed for the collection and transport of recyclable materials. The money collected from exchanging these recyclables is then put toward the employees’ salaries and the maintenance of their bicycles. Only adults are employed as the SSAP strictly forbids the use of child labor. In adopting this system, Tirana is gradually becoming one of the first cities worldwide that has a recycling process based entirely on bicycle transport, helping to reduce the need for and pollution from huge garbage trucks.

Sinan and Neritan were the first of the Roma community to become employees in the “I Recycle” program. Previously, their families would scrounge through landfill garbage, ultimately not earning even half of what Sinan and Neritan earn now. It gives them great pride to be able to begin new lives for their families and to be a part of the cause toward making Tirana a cleaner city. Furthermore, with the SSAP taking a strong stance against child labor, a condition of this employment is that the children of families with employees in the SSAP begin attending school. It is clearly fundamentally wrong for a childhood to be spent scavenging in landfills. This problem is increasingly being phased out as Sinan, Neritan, and other members of the Roma community can now provide their sons, daughters, sisters, and brothers with the educations they deserve.

None of this would have been possible without the donations of used bicycles from the American people that have been shipped to Albania by Pedals for Progress for over three years. The partnership between P4P and the Social Stimulating Alternative Programs was originally begun in 2010 with the goal of reintroducing bicycles to an automobile-centric society in order to decrease pollution and provide citizens with a healthy transportation alternative. However, this initial goal has been greatly expanded upon with bicycles being distributed throughout rural and urban areas, providing assistance to those in need. Companies are even finding the bikes to be useful as vehicles for advertising. Moreover, formerly a completely non-recycling community, the capital city of Tirana is making great strides toward accepting and adapting to the “I Recycle” system. In doing so, living conditions have improved and previously needy people have found employment.

The progress is encouraging and has fostered interest from other needy communities in Albania. However, in order to spread the “I Recycle” project and create more jobs countrywide, contributions and bicycle donations remain as vital as ever. With every bicycle donated, there is the potential for more successes—like those of Sinan and Neritan—in Albania. Every bicycle means one more opportunity to liberate a child from days spent fruitlessly scouring landfills for a few recyclable goods to instead give them a proper education and hope for a better life.

by Jola Foto
Spring 2011 InGear

Throughout the cities of western and northern Europe public bicycle services have been established that encourage and increase the use of bicycles as healthy and ecologically-sound transport.  Through these services subscribers can rent bikes in easily accessible locations throughout the city and when finished return them to any other convenient station in the network. PASS has long wished to emulate this type of system in Albania and by the end of December, 2010 we will have four stations set up around Tirana, the capital. Tirana Community Bicycle, the first bicycle-sharing program in the Balkans, is an initiative of the PASS organization undertaken with funding support from the Open Society Foundation of Albania (OSFA is a Soros Foundation democratization program for Albania) and a generous contribution from Pedals for Progress, which donated the first 500 bicycles. Thanks to P4P’s contribution, our project was implemented and we were encouraged to advance and expand it.

The city of Tirana, and especially its center, is quite suitable for transportation by bicycle. The downtown area is dense, the terrain is flat, and the climate is mild. The short distances and easy conditions make cycling a fast and practical way of moving in the center of the city, and may be the best means of meeting the needs of the citizens of Tirana.

Given the heavy traffic situation in the center of the city and air pollution from CO2 emissions, we believe that this service will be a valuable contribution to the community. PASS has been promoting the new system for some time before the placement of the public bicycle stations. In the course of our other social activities, and in conjunction with our P4P-supported bike retail shop EcoVolis, we have involved the citizens of Tirana by soliciting suggestions regarding form, logo, and slogan. We have also organized awareness activities with the young people of Tirana. For instance, on September 22nd, a national activity day called “A Day Without Cars,” we distributed over 200 bicycles in the Youth Park, Mother Theresa Square, and the Ministry of Education for the “transport by bicycle” learning activity. In January, we will donate 30 bicycles and organize bike training for the children.

We hope that the Tirana Community Bicycle service will be properly consolidated in 2011, with a targeted number of daily uses of the public bicycles by citizens. By doing this we wish to promote the use of bicycles as a mode of transport for commuting or performing other daily activities and increase their use in our city.

Ecovolis is a bike-sharing system based in Albania’s capital, Tirana. Initiated over two years ago, this program has revolutionized the city’s transportation and circulation scheme. There was a very real necessity to create a solution to the congestion and pollution in the car-filled streets of Tirana, and it is largely due to the donations of bicycles and the great work done by Ecovolis’s strongest partner, Pedals for Progress, that made the program take hold.

Since the first communication with P4P and its president, David Schweidenback, 1,465 bicycles have landed in Albania and they are all currently circulating in its streets. For a country of 3 million people, this is a great first step. Consider the fact that, after a fifty-year communist regime that forbade the personal use of automobiles, the last 20 years saw a surge in ownership of cars. The unfortunate result of this new age of consumption was that Albania became one of the most polluted countries in Europe.

As part of PASS (Programii Alternativave Sociale Stimuluese, Social Stimulating Alternative Programme), which promotes and support environmentally friendly actions, Ecovolis immediately embraced the idea of using recycled bicycles for Tirana’s bike-sharing system rather than purchasing new and potentially costly or unreliable alternatives. This system was presented to its citizens with a strong ecologic and recycling message: “Put used bicycles into good use.” People needed to be conscious of the need to reduce the pollution created by the multitude of cars that circulated in the city streets. P4P was the model we followed.

A great part of the bicycles were transformed and painted in order to become identical and be part of the bike-sharing system. However, hundreds of them were also donated to children’s organizations such as Terre des Hommes or orphanages. American efforts and involvement have created smiles on many Albanian children’s faces. Being so grateful to David and P4P, Ecovolis made a point to notify the staff of the U.S. Embassy in Tirana, who couldn’t but feel proud of the generosity and eco-friendly behavior of the people they represent here in Albania.

All in all, the shipments of those bicycles now seen in the streets of Tirana and Durrës and the sewing machines now used by associations of women in need offer a strong and concrete message to the Albanian people: Recycling and cooperating for good causes are what bring about solutions and unite people of distant nations.