Category Archives: bicycles

bicycles, Moldova, Peace Corps

A Second Program Opens in Moldova

by Darren Enterline, Peace Corps Volunteer
Fall 2009 InGear

Few people outside of Europe have ever heard of the Republic of Moldova. What those few usually do know is that the former Soviet Republic has the dubious distinction of consistently being the poorest nation in Europe. While many of the former Soviet-controlled states have thrived as independent democracies, Moldova has never been able to progress out of the political chaos of the early 1990s and the economic crises that followed. In 2008 the United Nations Human Development Report ranked Moldova 113th out of 179 nations, between Mongolia and Vietnam.

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The failure of the Moldovan government to transition from a communist Soviet Republic to an independent capitalist democracy means that much of the population currently lives in poverty. While the capital, Chisinau, and larger cities have recently shown signs of economic recovery, the countryside still suffers greatly. The rural village where Pedals for Progress’s partner organization is located is no exception. Pelinia, never a wealthy village, once supported industries such as brick manufacturing and food canning until the collapse of the Soviet Union. The ensuing privatization of state industries brought an end to those enterprises that couldn’t survive the new market economy. Today, most villagers in Pelinia support themselves by farming the small plots of land given to them after the collective Soviet farms were privatized in 1996. Many depend solely on these plots, approximately 4 to 10 acres, for both their food and income. Oftentimes, these plots are several kilometers outside the village forcing villagers to use valuable time travelling to and from their land. To make matters worse, the roads used to reach the plots are unpaved and deeply rutted, making it slow going for the ancient cars and horse carts that use them.

Because so many people are involved in small-scale, low-income farming, the local government is chronically underfunded and unable to provide even the most basic services. Few houses have running water, making it necessary for many to walk to public wells to retrieve their water. Gas is also only available to a few households and is too expensive for many to use. Those that can’t afford to buy wood or coal must travel outside the village to collect their own wood in order to heat their homes during the winter. Although Pelinia is a large village of over 8000 inhabitants, it is too small to offer public transportation. Villagers must provide their own means to travel to stores, markets and schools on roads that are not much better than the ones outside of the village. Basically, the villagers of Pelinia endure the same difficulties that impoverished people all over the world endure.

fall2009adultBikeWhile these hardships are debilitating, they are not impossible to overcome and Pedals for Progress offers one of the best ways to assist the villagers of Pelinia. Consult-Nord, a local Moldovan NGO established to promote local economic development in Pelinia, saw the potential results that Pedals for Progress’s bicycles could provide and requested to become a partner. Consult-Nord started selling bicycles this winter after receiving a shipment in late December of last year. The good quality, affordable bicycles now available at a shop set up by Consult-Nord offer numerous opportunities to villagers that otherwise would be inaccessible to them. With a bicycle, farmers can efficiently travel to their fields and more easily transport their crops and tools. Villagers can collect water and firewood with less effort. Students can arrive at school with more energy and villagers can independently travel throughout the village. A great example of how bicycles can help the villagers of Pelinia comes from Constant Surcanu. He is a 53-year-old farmer who regularly travels outside the village to work on his land. He bought a bicycle so he can reach his fields with more time to spare and so that he can also visit his relatives living throughout the village. He told us that he especially appreciates his bicycle’s wide, sturdy tires that can handle the demanding village roads. Another satisfied customer is Oleg Cerban. He is a 13-year-old student at the local middle school who bought a mountain bike so he could use it to get to school, to go on errands around the village for his family, and, of course, to visit his friends. These two examples show a few ways how bicycles can help the people of Pelinia. Simply put, bicycles in Pelinia provide what they provide to people all over the developing world, a simple means to independently better their lives.

bicycles, Nicaragua

Johana and the Learning by Tutorial System

by Karla Santana
Spring 2010 InGear

Johana del Carmen Sanchez Gonzalez is 14 years old. She lives in the rural community of El Higuero, Nicargua, some 16 km from the capital Managua, where she lives and works on her parents’ farm. Out of six children, she is the only one still attending school. She graduated from elementary school last year, but could no longer attend public school due to her responsibilities on the farm. However, thanks to Pedals for Progress and The Fabretto Center, she has been able to continue her education. The Fabretto Center is an organization dedicated to helping impoverished children and their families in underserved communities to break the cycle of poverty and reach their full potential through programs that promote nutrition, health, education, community, and character development.

Johana on her way to school
Johana on her way to school

For over 50 years they have been partnering with Nicaraguan communities, both urban and rural, to provide hope and a better future for their children. One such program is the Learning by Tutorial System (LTS), which promotes rural development by providing students with the technical training that they will need to improve agricultural practices for their families and their communities.

Essentially, LTS is a vocational high school program with great emphasis placed on the development of technical skills. LTS students are being equipped with the tools and knowledge to implement small-scale agriculturally productive projects to generate increased income. It is designed to meet the constraints of rural life. For example, the use of lightweight workbooks rather than texts lessens the load of students who walk great distances to class. Course topics are relevant to rural concerns, such as animal husbandry for the study of science. Practical teaching occurs through projects like small-plot farming that benefit the local community. Since this will eventually generate new economic opportunities, LTS also helps to reduce the migration of young people from the rural areas to the already over-crowded cities. The effort to keep up with her studies has not been easy for Johana, however.

During harvest season she doesn’t attend class because she has to help on her family’s farm. This means she has to put in that much more time and effort later to catch up on her studies. In addition, she lives eight kilometers from The Fabretto Center, a distance that takes five hours every day to walk there and back. “Even though she has adult responsibilities, at such a young age, she is one of the top students in her class” says Johana’s tutor. Currently in her first year of LTS, she participates in all the Fabretto activities and has showed a lot of interest in her studies. Her ambition is to become educated enough to reach a position in life from which she will able to better the lives of her family and other people in need. Already, she uses her experience in agriculture to not only help teachers with school gardens but also to encourage her classmates to learn more about it. Johana’s is the type of situation in which bicycles from Pedals for Progress can take a hand. Thanks to our donors, we’ve been collecting and shipping bikes to partners in Nicaragua for 19 years, over 32,000 bicycles in total. Despite the distance, Johana wished to persist. It would not have been practical, however, had she not had access to the utility of the wheel. With a bicycle from Pedals for Progress, Johana has been able to continue her studies and keep her dream of helping others alive. “All this time in Fabretto,” she says, “has helped me not only to grow as a human being but also to learn new things and put into practice what I have learned with my parents. I love sharing my knowledge with my classmates. I am currently learning how to use a computer. I really enjoy it.”

bicycles, Collectors

Westfield Police Department Donates 20 Bikes to Westfield Knights of Columbus

On July 15, 2011, Sgt McErlean and Detective Lisa Perrotta of the Westfield Police Department donated 20 used bikes to the Westfield Knights of Columbus (KOC). The KOC worked with Warren Rorden (Westfield Rotary Club) to arrange for the bikes to be picked up by Pedals for Progress (www.p4p.org), a nonprofit group that ships the bikes to third-world countries to go to people that use them for transportation.  In the attached photo you can see some of the bikes as well as (left to right) Walter Korfmacher (member  Westfield Knights of Columbus), David Schweidenback (President of Pedals for Progress), Detective Lisa Perrotta (Westfield Police Department) and Warren Rorden (member Westfield Rotary Club).

Then, Walter Korfmacher added 10 more bikes to make it 30 bikes total to Pedals for Progress. As shown in the second photo, all 30 bikes were loaded into one pickup truck. In this photo (left to right): David Schweidenback (President of Pedals for Progress), Jason Drew (intern at Pedals for Progress), Walter Korfmacher (member Westfield Knights of Columbus) and Warren Rorden (member Westfield Rotary Club).

Albania, bicycles

Albania #2 Shipped on May 28th

Saturday, May 28th, 2011

An extremely satisfying day,  Today P4P loaded 523 bikes in our second shipment ever for Albania, formerly the worlds most isolated country.   This shipment of used bikes and almost as importantly a vast array of parts and accessories donated by Easton Bell Sports will serve to supplement the Albanian Public Bike Service which was initiated with the first shipment last year.  P4P bikes are painted bright red and are available to the general public all around Tirane.  This program has been tried before, most notably in Amsterdam, and the key for success has always been that someone is responsible for the maintenance of the bicycles.  Our partner, Programi I Alternativav Sociale Stimuluese (PASS)  has set up 4 separate stations, each employing 2  employees serving as Customer Service to keep the bikes in good repair.

Also included in the shipment is about 35 new children’s helmets donated by Kent Bicycle Company.  PASS has donated the smaller children’s bicycles in the first shipment to the Roma Children’s Schools, where the very young are taught to ride and learn to enjoy biking as part of the curriculum.  They will now be able to do that more safely due to the generosity of Kent Bicycle Company.

P4P is very pleased that we have been able to continue to support PASS with this second shipment which, as with the first shipment last year, could not have been possible without the financial assistance of the Soros Foundation, which generously contributed to the transportation costs.

Henry Hansen of Vineland Rotary Club with bicycles he collected.

For years P4P focused primarily on Central America and Africa, yet there is the same need in many other places around the world.  We are maintaining our programs there but have broadened our reach by adding Eastern European programs and most recently Vietnam.  For P4P, need is sufficient to request our assistance, we have long had a policy of helping in many areas around the world, not just one country or region.

We are so pleased to announce this shipment, as the second shipment to a program is the true mark of success and we hope to continue to sending bikes to PASS for many years to come…of course, with your help and donations.  I hope all of you who have aided P4P in collecting these bikes are as proud as we are of the milestone of a 2nd shipment of aid directly to the Roma people from concerned Americans

bicycles, Collectors

2010 PEDAL WRENCH AWARD WINNERS

From time to time, Pedals for Progress likes to give out its prestigious Pedal Wrench of the Year Award to volunteers who, through outstanding individual and group effort, have collected large numbers of bicycles for us to ship overseas. This year we are pleased to have three great honorees. In 2010, P4P would like to honor (from left to right) Warren Rorden, Henry Hansen, and Gerry Agasar.

A significant amount of our annual bicycle volume is collected by Rotary Clubs—over 35 percent of our bikes pass through the hands of Rotarians. These three men are the coordinators for the P4P projects of their individual clubs; each of them has been consistently running collections on behalf of P4P for over a decade. Each of them have led their clubs to collect well in excess of a hundred bikes for us every one of those years. It’s a fantastic accomplishment, one that has required a great deal of effort for them individually, as well as for their clubs.

bicycles, Vietnam

Pedals for Progress Now in Vietnam

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Most recently, P4P’s readers have been kept abreast of our endeavors in locations such as Albania, Moldova, Uganda, and Ghana. We are now extremely pleased to announce that a new partner has joined P4P. Located in southwestern Vietnam, the Vinh Long Union of Friendship Organizations (VLUFO) collaborates with us to provide bicycles to the children in the Mekong Delta River region. An active participant funder of VLUFO, the Dariu Foundation (TDF) of Switzerland, has supplied the grant that is funding these initial shipments.

At the moment, there are three branches of the VLUFO. The first two, Vung Liem and Tra On, belong to the Vinh Long province. The third site, Tan Phu, belongs to the Dong Nai province. The bikes are to be distributed to school children in these regions on a scholarship basis and will be based, in part, on the distance from their homes to the school. Fifty percent of the bikes granted are earmarked for female and secondary school students.

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While elementary school tuition in the region is free and the small amount charged for attending junior high is small, it is the cost of textbooks, notebooks, pens, and uniforms that is usually high. If the students cannot acquire these basic requirements, they can’t attend school. A majority of families are affected by financial inconsistency during the school season because they earn their meager living from farming. The threat of flooding, exacerbated by climate change, and a high rate of emigration from the region affect families’ ability to earn a living and maintain strong communities. The children in this region are at the greatest risk of dropping out of school. The VLUFO hopes to reduce the financial burdens associated with educating the children of these families and offer the parents greater ease of access to economic opportunities in towns and cities. Before partnering with P4P, the VLUFO purchased the bicycles that they distribute. This has proven to be an expensive and, hence, short-lived option. The bicycles provided by P4P are the key to preventing a financial crisis for the Organizations while ensuring that they provide reliable transportation to families in need. The desired result is that the children stay in school and the parents spend more time on job and income generation.

The first shipment of 570 bikes is scheduled for the May 21st 2011 loading that will be bound for Vientnam. The Vinh Long Union of Friendship Organizations (VLUFO) plans to start distribution of P4P bikes in July. Though this will be the farthest location we ship to, Vietnam by far will be the cheapest place P4P has ever shipped bicycles.

 
  COUNTRY FACTS: VIETNAM

  POPULATION: 81 MILLION

  GDP PER CAPITA: $2,300 per year  

  LITERACY RATE: 94%