Partner: Peacemakers Community Foundation

Kinship in Guatemala, 2019: It is so much more than bicycles and sewing machines

By Scott Shreve
Spring 2019 Newsletter

So, you’ve been thinking about a project you could do to help someone across the world have a better life. In searching the internet, you come across the Pedals for Progress site and think, hmmm, maybe the youth group in your community would want to collect old bicycles and send them to others to help with getting them to a job or healthcare. This is exactly how my wife and I came to know Pedals for Progress some 13 years ago. A lot has changed since then. Our church youth group has collected more than 800 bikes and over $10,000 to support sending bikes overseas. There’s been a spin-off program known as Earn a Bike established in our community to give guys in the Rescue Mission, post-prison program, and substance use programs an opportunity to use some volunteer time to get a bike of their own. More recently, my wife and I traveled to Guatemala as we wanted to see first-hand what it’s like when the bikes and sewing machines “land” in another country, how they get used. Along the way we learned a lot about kinship, building communities, and gratitude.

There are a lot of do-gooders in the world, in all shapes and sizes. Some help for a day, others go on to make giving a part of their entire life. When you start a project, like a bicycle collection for your community, you will quickly realize there will be a mixture of excitement in your group, along with others who may be there more out of curiosity than anything else. Some will likely be there to remind you of why this initiative will not work. Have faith. All these people have a role in the success of your collection, whether their contribution is adding to the fun and energy of a new project or perhaps tempering the enthusiasm with the reality of where to store the bicycles and how to prepare for the scraped knuckles along the way. Welcome all to the project, make sure you include a healthy dose of fun along the way and say thank you to your group and contributors many times.

One sunny morning, as our bicycle collection was coming to a close, some people walking by our church stopped to ask if they could get a bike? We proudly shared with them that our youth group was collecting bicycles to be sent overseas for people needing transportation. The passersby shared that they too needed transportation, could we help them? “No, sorry, these bikes are to go overseas.” Having to share these disheartening words with our church neighbors didn’t set well with us. All kinds of thoughts were going through my mind. Somewhat thankfully, I got called away from this conversation when a youth group member called for help in getting the pedals off a bicycle. I helped with the pedal removal but the question about how to serve those in need of bicycles more locally remained.

The community of bicyclists has been described as being made of tribes. These tribes are made up of mountain bikers, road bikers, those who tour, messengers (in a class all of their own), commuters, and others. The intersection of these different tribes comes at bicycle repair shops, bike clubs, and perhaps coffee shops. Bicycle clubs put their activities on their websites where you’ll find a combination of races, rides, socials and advocacy events. On one of these websites I heard about a Recycle Bicycle program that operated in a nearby city. I volunteered there and was amazed at how many bicycles they gave out, how they connected with their community, helping guys in halfway houses, getting kids a working bike and helmet, and being a beacon for sharing in the fun of fixing up and riding a bike.

Hmmm … perhaps we could establish a similar program in our city. The head of Recycle Bicycle of Harrisburg jumped at the idea of expanding a similar program in our city and after getting enthusiastic approval to operate as part of the Lebanon Valley Bicycle Coalition, we held an Earn a Bike session in the parking lot of a local Rescue Mission. It was a delight to see the smiles on the guys’ faces as they fixed up bikes and realized their new found freedom to explore the area in ways that walking wouldn’t allow. Then a local businessman (Willie Erb) offered warehouse space for our Earn a Bike program and we’ve been up and running on the 4th Saturday monthly for the past 5 years. This Earn a Bike program works closely with the Lebanon Rescue Mission, the Jubilee post-prison, and VA substance use programs. This upcoming year, we’ll be reaching out to support students at the local community college as many of these students are at or below the poverty level and a bicycle can make getting to class or a part-time job a lot easier. All of these activities led my wife and me to want to visit Guatemala and see how others use bicycles to support their community.

After a dozen years of working with a youth group collecting bicycles for P4P, we wondered what is it really like to be on the receiving end of a shipment of bicycles. Is there a crowd of people waiting as a cargo container arrives at the village? What type of bicycles are most valued? How do they put the diversity of bikes to use? Are the smiles on the bicycle recipients as wide as those we were seeing with our Earn a Bike program? With guidance from Dave Schweidenback, we chose to visit Guatemala. It gave us pause to see that the U.S. State Department had warnings online for tourists about increasing violence in parts of Guatemala but we found some solace that the Guatemalan program had been working with P4P for many years.

For us, Guatemala was a blend of beauty, poverty, and guns. We landed in Guatemala City and barely traveled a few blocks in a taxi before we saw firsthand the pervasiveness of guns. While we were stopped at a traffic light, a pickup truck pulled up next to us with six guys in the back of the truck. Each of the guys had a rifle over his shoulder. When we got to our hotel, we realized all of the stores downtown had armed guards. I’d never seen a McDonalds with an armed guard before. Who would have thought the fries could be that good?

Our experience in the villages outside Guatemala City was much different. We were welcomed by just about everyone we met and did not see any guns. Our driver, Hugo, became a fast friend and took us to our destination, San Andrés Itzapa. Hugo had spent time in the states but delightfully shared the beauty of his home country, including the historical charm of Antigua and sites along our meandering path to San Andrés Itzapa. As we entered the village, we stopped to tour a convent. I had met some medical missionaries along the way and they graciously offered to show us their setup in the convent, where for one week, they serve the local community in any way they can. Interestingly, the convent happened to be “just across the street” from the dirt road we needed to take to get to the P4P bicycle program known here as FIDESMA. Thankfully our driver had a strong faith as we drove down a long and ever narrowing dirt road to finally come to FIDESMA. In this desolate village outpost we quickly learned about kinship.

In this hilly corner of a village, a handful of caring souls have made it their mission to empower others. Decades ago they received a shipment of bicycles and set up shop, fixing up and sharing these bicycles with others. The shop was clean, spacious and filled with a wide assortment of well-maintained bicycles. I have to admit, I was a bit envious as our Earn a Bike shop wasn’t as nice as theirs. Remember though, only the first container of P4P bicycles is shipped without charge to the partner, so the Guatemalan shop has been sustained by selling and repairing bikes to meet their customers’ needs since their first shipment in 1999. Bicycles are only one part of FIDESMA. The next room was a classroom set up with sewing machines used to teach sewing skills, perhaps a skill more readily converted to Qs (quetzals, the Guatemalan currency) than having a bicycle. But wait, there’s more. The next room over had a large workshop for teaching welding. I was beginning to think we had stumbled onto a homemade vocational–technical school, which it was in many ways. Aside from the empowerment of learning these trades or getting a bike, customers could also get much needed dental care in a room at the end of the building. In a country devastated with gang violence and poverty, we saw first-hand how Margarita, Arnulfo, Isabel, and others were able to create a sustainable program to care for others with a “hand up”, not just a “handout”.

We were honored to sit down with the crew from FIDESMA for snacks and a soda. I can’t put into words how kind and generous they were to us in sharing their program. We told them how our visit made it all the more rewarding for us in collecting the bikes that end up in Guatemala and elsewhere. The conversation at the table drifted in all sorts of directions including a desire by my wife and me to help Guatemalans in the midst of so much turmoil. It just so happens that there is a young woman in their village who is looking to go to community college and we have a spare bedroom in our home to support an exchange student. Perhaps through connections like P4P, Sewing Peace, and exchange students, we can do our small part to build kinship across the borders that separate us.

President’s Message, Spring 2019

Our 28th spring collection season is well underway. We have a number of new collection sponsors and a number of new international partners. In my last message I spoke of having completed our goals in communities such as Rivas, Nicaragua, having saturated the area with bicycles. That has created the opportunity to open new programs in new countries.

In fiscal 2019 we have already resupplied our now-oldest programs: in 1999 we first shipped to FIDESMA in Guatemala with a grant from the New England Bio Labs Foundation, and in 2010 we first shipped to PASS/Ecovolis in Albania with a grant from the Clif Bar Family Foundation and the Soros Foundation. We have been able to create a new bicycle and sewing machine partnership with The Norbert and Friends Foundation in Arusha, Tanzania, thanks to the Jos Claerbout Family and William and Helen Mazar Foundation. Peace Maker Community Development Center in Lagos, Nigeria, should have a container of bikes floating towards them by the time you read this letter.

This year we resupplied Albania, Guatemala, and the new Tanzanian project with sewing machines. We will also be sending sewing machines in both of the bicycle shipments for Nigeria and Gambia. Independently, with a grant from the Dewan Foundation, we have made sewing-machine-only shipments: the first to resupply the Mityana Open Troop Foundation in Mityana, Uganda, with 72 more sewing machines, bringing their total to 207, and the second to open a new relationship with a shipment of 72 sewing machines to Association Défi et Révolution de la Vie Rurale in Togo. Togo, Nigeria, and Gambia are all new countries for Pedals for Progress and Sewing Peace.

Creating a new successful distribution point overseas, simply described, is starting a new business. Starting a new business takes investment. Pedals for Progress and Sewing Peace have been extremely successful in identifying the most motivated, dedicated and hard-working partners worldwide. Indeed our overseas partners, through their efforts, make P4P/SP so uniquely successful. From here in New Jersey we supply them with the pieces, but it is up to our international partners to put those pieces together to become a long-term distributor such as FIDESMA in Guatemala or PASS/Ecovolis in Albania. When they are successful and can take multiple shipments, there are greater economies of scale and experience. Our final success is when that bicycle or sewing machine is in the hands of a local customer. It is crucial to our success to have a fair and equitable distributor receiving our product overseas.

Thank you to all the individual donors as well as our essential corporate and foundation donors for allowing us the opportunity to continue on our mission to empower sustainable economic development by recycling bicycles and sewing machines from the U.S. and shipping them to motivated people in the developing world. We literally can not do it without you!

2019: Sewing machines for women locked in blood feuds in northern Albania

By the EcoVolis Team
Spring 2019 Newsletter

The Kanun of Lek Dukagjini is a set of traditional Albanian laws originally codified in the 15th century. The Kanun includes laws on religion, family, work, and honor, including laws sanctioning murder in blood feuds. Blood-taking or retaliation has affected many families — including women, mothers, and children — in the Malësia e Madhe and Shkodër regions of Albania. Under Kanun, affected families have no right to leave their homes, under penalty of death.

Today Kanun affects over 106 families, 83 convicted of Kanun crimes. Though Kanun-sanctioned violence is illegal in Albania, the state is still ineffective in dealing with it.

PASS/Ecovolis undertook a house-to-house campaign to donate dozens of sewing machines to women of these families. On May 13, 2019, we brought sewing machines to the confined households in Malësia e Madhe. We had the opportunity to hear about the hardships of living with their isolation: the poverty, the inability to work and support children, the inability of children to go to school and to have a normal childhood.

“It’s impossible,” says Anjeza, a mother of four, “raising the children, keeping the family locked up without any support or job opportunities. We do not know how our destiny will go.”

PASS has raised concerns about these families several times. In the fall 2015 P4P newsletter, we decribed the effect of Kanun on children’s lives. Children are not allowed to leave their family property, so they may be deprived of school and education. PASS visited several of these families to donate bicycles that children can ride at least in their yards.

Together with Sewing Peace we believe we have given some hope for dozens of women in an impossible situation. As always, thanks to P4P/SP for this opportunity!

[ PASS/Ecovolis facebook post on the sewing machine project (in Albanian, but with lots of photos)]

Tanzania 2019: Does life ever get you down?

By David Schweidenback
Spring 2019 Newsletter

Do you feel like you have the weight of the world on your shoulders?

In October 2018 we planned to ship a container to Aid the Needy in Homa Bay, Kenya. On October 1st, the Kenyan legislature changed the import laws, effectively barring us from the country. The warehouse was full and it was imperative that we make that shipment to make room in the warehouse for the bicycles coming in.

Switching to plan B, I had two potential partners in Tanzania to whom we could send the shipment. The first, The Norbert and Friends Foundation, was a very solid well-known NGO that I knew could do a good job. There was a second, smaller, younger organization called MATOLO which sent in the best proposal I have gotten in 28 years. As E.F. Schumacher notes in “Small is Beautiful”, sometimes smaller organizations are more creative and effective than larger organizations.

I decided to send the first container shipment for Tanzania to MATOLO and we shipped it out in early October, just in time to make room for the incoming bikes from our collections. The shipment arrived in Dar es Salaam in early January 2019. I was working with my contact there to get the container quickly out of customs because you only have a few days to empty the container or the shipping line starts charging you a daily fee called demurrage. Demurrage in Dar es Salaam is $120 per day!

By late February I was getting really nervous because the storage fees were building and it was going to be difficult for MATOLO to be able to pay those storage fees. Apparently in mid-February they just walked away. I wrote daily emails begging for an update and I finally realized by the beginning of March that the first group did not have the legal authority nor the finances to get the container out of customs.

In early March I started the process of changing the consignee to The Norbert and Friends Foundation. Once a container has been delivered to port it is extremely difficult to change the consignee. It took most of the month of March and into early April to get the paperwork changed. At this point in March 2019 we had made over 395 shipments overseas and I had never needed to do this before. It was a very steep learning curve.

By mid April I was able to get the paperwork changed but by then the storage fees had added up to a sum much greater than the actual cost of shipping. It was getting to the point that we might have to abandon the shipment. There are two ways to think about abandoning a shipment. On one hand, it would be a great loss for our program partner to not receive the 479 bicycles and 119 sewing machines. On the other hand if the container is abandoned it is sold at public auction. The bicycles and sewing machines would still go to individuals, but to individuals we don’t know. So the cargo is not lost; it is only lost to our organization and our partner. Still it would be a bitter pill to tell the foundation that paid for the shipping that we “lost” the shipment. It is hard to lose a 40-foot container that weighs 11,000 pounds! It wasn’t really lost — we knew where it was, we just didn’t have the legal authority to get it.

The Norbert and Friends Foundation and Pedals for Progress started petitioning the shipping line to give us a bit of a break. After all, this is a humanitarian aid shipment. Demurrage for shipping lines is like icing on the cake — a boost to their bottom line. It is pure profit. Weeks of negotiation went by as the cost of the storage went up by $120 per day. When the shipping line gave us their first invoice, it was a pretty shocking number. I fearfully went to a currency converter; they wanted more than $10,000. The initial shipping cost was $5000.

Abandon the container and look like a fool to our funders, come up with money that none of us had, or continue to negotiate. Norbert decided he was not going to give up and he kept hounding the shipping line to bring down the price to some reasonable cost. There were daily emails for weeks on end trying to convince the pertinent authorities that although we were liable for these expenses, we were trying to do something good for the benefit of the country. Our shipments really do increase the productivity of the population, which in itself improves the economy and therefore the country.

In the end the shipping line relented, I think in part because they just wanted to stop having to deal with Norbert and P4P on a daily basis. And the government also helped get some of the fees waived. So after four months of feeling like this school bus on the island of Dominica (where I took this picture on vacation), a tremendous weight has been lifted off Pedals for Progress and The Norbert and Friends Foundation. It was expensive, but the container is out and will soon be delivered to the Arusha Valley in northern Tanzania. Our new partner, N&FF, is an extremely positive and capable organization. Norbert has proved himself under difficult conditions. I have been trying to get a container of bicycles into Tanzania for almost a decade. I have struggled to find a partner who can get the job done. We now have that partner. Our greatest thanks to Norbert Mbwiliza for his tireless efforts at securing these bicycles and sewing machines for the people of the Arusha Valley. The 8-month transit is over and I look forward to all the good reporting I’m sure we’ll get from northern Tanzania.

Uganda: Report from the Mityana Open Troop Foundation, January–April 2019

By Mathew Yawe, Executive Director
Spring 2019 Newsletter

BackGround

The Mityana Open Troop Foundation was started in 1997 by a group of Boy Scouts who had been affected by socio-economic issues leading to their dropping out of school. Others had been affected by HIV/AIDS due to loss of their relatives and guardians. The initiative started as a community program by raising awareness of the HIV/AIDS scourge. We held talk shows on health. We promoted environmental protection, child nutrition in risky communities, food security, support and education to vulnerable people, and functional adult learning among those who cannot read.

The high school drop-out rate caused by socio-economic factors and the nature of the Ugandan education system, which emphasizes theory, resulted in a high youth unemployment rate: 64%. Crime rates among youths in Uganda, specifically in the Mityana area, were high.

Because of these concerns, our organization started a Vocational Skill Training project in 2007 to recruit vulnerable youths. With support from partner organizations in the U.K., we started working with parents and other members of the community to mobilize unemployed youths in Mityana who had interests in acquiring vocational skills. We recruited school dropouts who didn’t complete their studies because they couldn’t afford school fees. We recruited girls who dropped out of school due to unwanted pregnancies. We also advocated for girls who were sex workers to abandon that activity and join our project. The project is currently recruiting single mothers and disadvantaged youths to be trained in:

• tailoring, designing, and fashion
• hair dressing, beauty, and weaving
• carpentry and joinery
• motor vehicle mechanics (parts 1, 2, and 3)
• crop and agriculture skills
• languages (English and Luganda), writing, speaking and
  algebra

Each course takes 2 years. At graduation, trainees are awarded certificates along with start-up tools or sewing machines to enable them to go into the market and start their own businesses.

Mission

Empower marginalized vulnerable youths, orphans, and women through vocational skills acquisition and promoting better standards of living.

Aim

To reduce unemployment and over dependency among the marginalized groups of people.

Objectives

Mityana Open Troop Foundation aims at achieving the following objectives:

• Create community awareness on sexually transmitted infections.
• Create a conducive educational atmosphere by fully equipping the vocational project with all the necessary training tools/machines along with working materials.
• Help vulnerable children attain education by sponsorship and scholastic material support.
• Develop, promote, and educate children about nutrition.
• Construct shelters for the poor, elderly, widows, and orphans.
• Provide start-up tools to all who graduate from our program, to enable them to start their own businesses.

Achievements

• During the training period of January – April 2019, we recruited 85 new trainees, for a current total of 112. In November 2018, 71 trainees graduated and left a big gap at the training centre!
• Sewing Peace, our sewing machine partner, managed to approach The Dewan Foundation and asked them to kindly sponsor the shipping of 2 pallets to our Vocational Project in Uganda.
• The project has conducted training in all the courses mentioned above.
• Project trainees participated in athletic competitions and did well.
• Project trainees participated in a debate on the topic, “How can one overcome AIDS?”
• Project trainees together with scouts volunteered in clearing brush
  around the well that is the village water source.
• The project with support of Mr. Nino Ardizzi and Ms. Madison Ardizzi of Canada began construction of a wooden poultry house, where trainees will learn poultry farming, though the house has not yet been roofed and completed.

Appreciations

• Many thanks go to Sewing Peace, for donating us nice sewing machines, which have really made a great change in our communities and made possible the sewing training workshop at our project. Initially the machine-to-student ratio was 1 to 5 trainees; now each trainee has a machine. We praise Mr. David Schwiedenback for always caring for our project. We also thank all volunteers involved in refurbishing the sewing machines and the sewing machine donors.
• We extend many thanks to The Dewan Foundation for having kindly funded the shipping of sewing machine pallets to our vocational project in Uganda. Please continue with your kind spirit; we appreciate your great care.
• The project extends many thanks to Mr. Nino Ardizzi and Ms. Madison of Canada for supporting us in constructing a poultry house, though it is not yet completed.
• We thank the Government of Uganda, through its Ministry of Education and Sports, for always sponsoring 50 disadvantaged youths at our vocational project.
• Thanks go to Kolping Mityana Womens project, which sponsors some 15 orphans at our vocational project. The funds from the Ugandan Government and from Kolping have supported paying the instructors and providing meals for our trainees.

Challenges

• Insufficient classroom space has Very Very much affected our programs, as we must sometimes train outside, where it is not safe when it rains and where it can be extremely hot. Lack of classroom space also forces us to limit the number of trainees who can enroll in our programs.
• We charge little tuition for our training, but unfortunately some still cannot afford it! As a result, the project sometimes cannot pay instructors on time or provide meals for trainees.
• It is a challenge for us to pay shipping costs and Ugandan import fees for the sewing machines donated to us by Sewing Peace.

Future Plan / Way Forward

• Construct a 2-classroom block to accommodate all potential trainees.
• Continue to get sewing machines shipments from Sewing Peace.
• Partner with and visit other U.S., Canadian, U.K., and other organizations and other vocational training programs to learn how they operate and how they sustain their institutions.

Conclusion

On behalf of the Mityana Open Troop Foundation, I conclude by thanking once again whoever has supported us financially and in-kind, and those who have worked tirelessly towards the development of our project. Thank you very much.

Sewing Machines in Vietnam, 2019

By Hanh Nguyen, GM of The Dariu Foundation (TDF) in Vietnam
Spring 2019 Newsletter

Our vision is creating a positive impact for 1 million people by 2025 using microfinance and education. On the path to advance our mission, we have been kindly supported by generous partners, one of which is Pedals for Progress (P4P) / Sewing Peace (SP).

In 2018, TDF got one container of 500 used bicycles granted to the most disadvantaged students and 30 sewing machines to low-income women in Da Nang city. The sewing machines were given to women with unstable employment and of low-income families. The program was aimed at supporting the selected women to generate jobs and improve their incomes. In addition to the sewing machines, TDF also provided each of them with micro-credit of $1,000 as working capital for the business.

In December 2018, we visited the beneficiaries and learned that most of them had better employment and more income. Lanh Nguyen, a 40-year old mother, was one of the program members. She told us that her family had a hard time before she got a sewing machine from Sewing Peace via The Dariu Foundation. She tried different jobs but her family’s situation remained vulnerable. She had to work from dawn to dusk, but still could not make ends meet. She had no savings.

In 2014 she got a job at a garment factory more than 7 miles from her home. Every day she rode to work with her old bike, and it took her more than an hour for the ride. In 2016, the factory cut its staff; Lanh kept her job but it was changed to part-time. Her income was reduced by half. At this time her children started school, which made their life all the more difficult.

In 2018, she got an SP sewing machine in a Dariu program and started a business at home with three other women in the village. “I told my peers that we need to work together so that we can provide sewing services for the local companies. If it is only me, the company would not give me their jobs, because I could not meet the deadline and the quantity,” Lanh explained. “Now, five other women have joined us, so we can take bigger orders. I’m very happy that we can work together like a small company where every member contributes their own machine, and a little capital,” she added.

Now each member in the workshop has a stable income and personal savings of $2 per day. Their plan is to attract another 20 local women from the same background to join their workshop in 2019.

“With sewing machines from SP and micro-loans from TDF, we have been able to start and expand our business, creating stable income for our families and earning money for our children’s education,” said Lanh Nguyen.

Thanks to generous support from Sewing Peace and the Dariu Foundation, tens of families have improved their quality of life and earned greater respect in their families and communities.

Nigeria 2019: New Country, New Partner

Spring 2019 Newsletter

On March 19, 2019, Pedals for Progress and Sewing Peace signed a partnership with the New Jersey affiliate of the Peace Maker Community Foundation (PMCF), Nigeria.

PMCF has organized training initiatives for widows and youth for the past 12 years. They offer training in photography, event planning, decoration, fashion design, soap making, and baking. Working with local and national government groups, they plan to open bike shops and a sewing center in Nigeria. Their programs are open to all citizens.

We made contact with PMCF through Shola Adedeji, MPH, a pastor in New Jersey. Ms. Adedeji had planned a trip to Nigeria for later in March, so she came to the Sewing Peace warehouse and picked up four sewing machines to carry back to Nigeria.

When a full container became available for shipping in June, we were able to fund it thanks to the Clif Bar Family Foundation. Our revolving fund idea is that the profits from this shipment will be able to fund the next shipment, and so on.

On June 7th we did a small preload: we loaded a row of bikes and moved a bunch of sewing machines into place for the main loading.
On June 8th, the main crew loaded 463 bikes and 141 sewing machines.

Nigeria is a new country for Sewing Peace and Pedals for Progress — a first container in 2019, but hopefully many more to come.

Collecting Sewing Machines for Sewing Peace, 2019

Spring 2019 Newsletter

[Editor’s note: this is a report from one of our very best sewing machine collectors, who wishes to remain anonymous. The dozens of machines we get every year from this volunteer arrive clean and in perfect working condition.]

I am the recycling coordinator for a solid waste management district.  I work with five transfer stations, three of which collect used sewing machines for me.

The collection of sewing machines here is a group effort. The employees at the transfer stations keep an eye out for sewing machines and set them aside for me to pick up. Plus, of course, we have generous donors who not only provide the machines but also throw in thread, extra needles, bobbins, pins, etc. The older machines are my favorites; I’ve been working on one that is 81 years old and came with its original manual. It’s a trooper.

The process of collecting and shipping the machines has evolved over the years. In addition to cleaning, oiling, and testing the machines, I now make drawstring bags to hold sewing notions, sew dust covers, cut out and embroider felt pin-holders, and put together sewing kits for each machine. And there’s my long-suffering husband, who has accepted the annexation of an entire room in our house for the Sewing Peace project.

My hobby has become a labor of love for people I will never meet but feel very connected to through a shared appreciation for sewing machines. I am very grateful to have the opportunity to contribute to Sewing Peace’s wonderful mission.

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P4P/SP Partners as of June 2019 ( Map)

 

ALBANIA, Tirana, PASS/EcoVolis: 7,371 bikes (2010 – 2019), 326 sewing machines (2010 – 2019)

GUATEMALA, Chimaltenango, Fundacion Integral de Desarrollo Sostenible y Medio Ambiente (FIDESMA): 9,865 bikes (1999 – 2019), 294 sewing machines (2003 – 2019)

KOSOVO, Kastriot, GoBike: 450 bikes (2018), 50 sewing machines (2018)

NIGERIA, Lagos, Peace Maker Community Development Foundation: 463 bikes (2019), 145 sewing machines (2019)

TANZANIA, Arusha, The Norbert and Friends Foundation: 469 bikes (2019), 119 sewing machines (2019)

TOGO, Vogan, Association Défi et Révolution de la Vie Rurale: 72 sewing machines (2019)

UGANDA, Mityana, Mityana Open Troop Foundation: 209 sewing machines (2017 – 2019)

Twenty-Eight Year Bicycle Grand Total 157,770

Nineteen Year Sewing Machine Grand Total 4,767

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Financial Sponsors

A SPECIAL THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS AND MAJOR CONTRIBUTORS:

John Alexander & Jane Divinski
AXA Foundation
Biovid
Sherman Carll
CCG Facilities Integration, Inc.
Mrs. Diane Claerbout and Professor Jon Claerbout
Clif Bar Family Foundation
Dariu Foundation
Dewan Foundation
ExxonMobil Foundation
FedEx
Pamela Hanlon Charitable Fund
Jack & Donna Haughn
Robert & Laura Hockett
Leo & Helen Hollein
Elliott & Kathleen Jones
Gary & Mary Kamplain
Dorothy Magers
Helen & William Mazer Foundation
David Schweidenback & Geraldine Taiani
South Brunswick Education Association
Andrew Williams & Emily Winand
Kermit Leslie Young, Jr.

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P4P/SP Board of Trustees

John Alexander, Treasurer
Unit 3230, Box 470
DPO, AA 34031 – 0470

David Schweidenback, President & CEO
86 E Main St
High Bridge, NJ 08829

John Strachan
95 Old York Rd
Hopewell, PA 18938

Andrew Williams
642 Jersey Av Apt 3
Jersey City, NJ 07303

Robert Zeh, Secretary
5 Woods Edge Ct
Clinton, NJ 08809

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P4P/SP Staff Directory

Dave Schweidenback – Founder and CEO

Gary Michel – VP and Collection Coordinator

Lori Smith  – Office Manager

Michael Sabrio – Webmaster

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Tue Jun 11 21:58:25 EDT 2019

Our 28th spring collection season is well underway. We have a number of new collection sponsors and a number of new international partners. In my last message I spoke of having completed our goals in communities such as Rivas, Nicaragua, having saturated the area with bicycles. That has created the opportunity to open new programs in new countries.

In fiscal 2019 we have already resupplied our now-oldest programs: in 1999 we first shipped to FIDESMA in Guatemala with a grant from the New England Bio Labs Foundation, and in 2010 we first shipped to PASS/Ecovolis in Albania with a grant from the Clif Bar Family Foundation and the Soros Foundation. We have been able to create a new bicycle and sewing machine partnership with The Norbert and Friends Foundation in Arusha, Tanzania, thanks to the Jos Claerbout Family and William and Helen Mazar Foundation. Peace Maker Community Development Center in Lagos, Nigeria, should have a container of bikes floating towards them by the time you read this letter.

This year we resupplied Albania, Guatemala, and the new Tanzanian project with sewing machines. We will also be sending sewing machines in both of the bicycle shipments for Nigeria and Gambia. Independently, with a grant from the Dewan Foundation, we have made sewing-machine-only shipments: the first to resupply the Mityana Open Troop Foundation in Mityana, Uganda, with 72 more sewing machines, bringing their total to 207, and the second to open a new relationship with a shipment of 72 sewing machines to Association Défi et Révolution de la Vie Rurale in Togo. Togo, Nigeria, and Gambia are all new countries for Pedals for Progress and Sewing Peace.

Creating a new successful distribution point overseas, simply described, is starting a new business. Starting a new business takes investment. Pedals for Progress and Sewing Peace have been extremely successful in identifying the most motivated, dedicated and hard-working partners worldwide. Indeed our overseas partners, through their efforts, make P4P/SP so uniquely successful. From here in New Jersey we supply them with the pieces, but it is up to our international partners to put those pieces together to become a long-term distributor such as FIDESMA in Guatemala or PASS/Ecovolis in Albania. When they are successful and can take multiple shipments, there are greater economies of scale and experience. Our final success is when that bicycle or sewing machine is in the hands of a local customer. It is crucial to our success to have a fair and equitable distributor receiving our product overseas.

Thank you to all the individual donors as well as our essential corporate and foundation donors for allowing us the opportunity to continue on our mission to empower sustainable economic development by recycling bicycles and sewing machines from the U.S. and shipping them to motivated people in the developing world. We literally can not do it without you!

Progress and Peace in Uganda

By Patricia Hamill
Spring 2018

In July of 2017, Sewing Peace sent 73 refurbished sewing machines to the Mityana Open Troop Foundation (MOTF) & Vocational Project for their tailoring and designing workshops. The relationship with MOTF is a promising one and steadily growing. After the delivery, we were soon notified that these machines were put right to use and helped a number of participants earn their certificates of completion in the two-year program. Start-up machines were presented to graduates so they could move on to business ownership or employment in tailoring and sewing.

Participants, predominantly young men and women between 13 and 25 years old, are often those who have been orphaned young and have no family to depend on or those whose families cannot afford their education. Some teenagers are already parents themselves. Lack of job skills is inevitably a consequence of these factors as they have faced severe financial and social boundaries that prevent them from becoming independent earners. But with the continued availability of the vocational workshops and machines, the success rate grows and more of these people can reverse or mend their monetary dilemmas.

The vocational program does offer other courses such as hairdressing and hair weaves, carpentry and joinery, auto mechanics, agriculture, and animal husbandry, but the sewing courses are especially in demand. In July, the ratio of machines to people was 1:4, sometimes 1:5. With the additional machines, the current ratio of machine to participant in the workshops is now 1:3. According to Matthew Yawe, the Executive Director of Mityana Open Troop Foundation & Vocation Project and the country representative for Pedals For Progress/Sewing Peace in Uganda, a recent graduation ceremony that included the presentation of the sewing machines to the trainees who had completed their program “enticed and attracted more trainees from all the surrounding areas and they also brought in their children to study.” Many hope to join and to graduate with “nice sewing machines from [the] project.” The sewing department, last year, had a population of 30 trainees; this year, there was an increase to 45.

The sewing program has set up a shop in their town from which they sell some of the machines. The income enables them to pay the instructors and meet the shipping and customs costs.

One of the graduates of 2017, Resty Masane, put her new sewing machine to work on the veranda of her parents’ home in Nalyankanja, an area about 18km (11 miles) from Mityana. This 20 year old joined the vocational project in 2015. She had completed her “primary seven,” which is the last of seven years of academic study before students move on to six years of secondary schooling, but her parents did not have enough money to send her for this next stage of studies. Her parents are farmers who manage to grow enough for home consumption and have just a little left to sell or trade in order to buy other requirements. In fact, Resty’s parents paid her sewing program fees by bartering beans—a reliable crop in their climate—and maize for her vocational studies. Something of value exchanged for something of value: It’s a win-win arrangement.

Resty’s contracts include making uniforms for a village secondary school and two village primary schools. She earns between 10,000 and 15,000 Ugandan shillings (approximately U.S. $2.65 to $4.00) Since she can make 3–5 uniforms a week and also do repairs for a fee, she has an income that is reliable and a skill that will remain in demand. To add to her success, she now pays school fees for her five siblings. Resty also puts the barter system to good use by providing some uniforms to a sister’s school in lieu of paying fees. Her income also helps defray the cost of medication for her family and enables her to maintain a phone, which of course lets her stay in touch with clients and schools.

Also in 2017, Ereth Nampijja, a 21-year-old woman, graduated after taking a tailoring and fashion design course. She lives in Busunju-Mityana, located 30km (about 19 miles) from Mityana. She had been a good student, moving from primary school to completing her O levels—the exams taken after the first 4 years of secondary school—but her family could not afford to send her for the critical last two years. As a result, she could not sit for the A levels (final exams) or graduate. It was then that she approached MOTF to participate in the vocational program. Two years later, Ereth’s ambition and effort cumulated in a certificate of completion and, with what help her parents could offer, she now has a three-month lease of a space in the market where she can repair or repurpose second-hand clothes to sell from her shop or via mobile vendors who take the goods to the rural villages to sell.

Ereth averages about 7,000 Ugandan shillings (approximately $1.85) per day. This newfound financial independence allows her to rent a room near her shop and provides her with daily meals. Like Resty, she can provide funds for medication and cover school fees for her brothers and sisters. Her goals are to grow her business and to have more room to store her machine and finished products safely from the elements.

As this article was being finalized, we heard from Matthew that the recent shipment of 64 more machines reached MOTF and were being made ready for the next class session. The heavy-duty machines especially pleased him because the orders for school uniforms can also be completed with the institutions’ embroidered emblems and garments made from heavy fabrics can also be made and mended as part of the graduates’ added services offered.

As is to be expected, there are ongoing challenges for the program. These, however, are a result of the progress it has made. This growth in enrollment means that the existing workshop is at maximum capacity and the instructors often have to create shelters outside under the trees where they set up the sewing machines for classes. With the better part of six months of the year bringing substantial rainfall, this makeshift environment is not a viable long-term option. MOTF is, as always, looking to the future and plans to be able to reinvest in and improve their facilities as they continue to sell machines and bicycles from Pedals for Progress. The record of success stories can only continue to expand from here.

President’s Message, Spring 2018

These are exciting times at P4P. There have been a lot of extremely positive developments since we wrote the last newsletter, concerning our past, our present, and our future.

Let’s first do the past. You know that we develop long-term partnerships with the organizations overseas that distribute our bicycles. Our oldest project — started in 1992 in Rivas, Nicaragua — created our model that we have duplicated around the world. It’s time to end the project!

We have shipped 25,569 bikes into Rivas and 42,879 to Nicaragua as a whole. It’s time to move on. The economy in Nicaragua is very bad right now but the people of Rivas have mobility; the town is saturated with bikes. Rivas has moved from a walking city to a mechanized city; our work there is done.

When we started in Rivas the average child completed four years of school. Today because they all have bicycles and can get to school do their studies and get home in time to do their chores, the average child completes high school. It was all done on bicycles donated by you.

There have been a couple of documentaries on the success of the city; the most notable is “The Bicycle City” by Greg Sucharew. (Click here for a one-minute trailer.)

While Rivas is a tremendous success I am sad because I have interacted with the people of this community for over 25 years and I will always consider Wilfredo Santana my brother. But ending the Rivas program will allow P4P to ship to other places currently in greater need.

Next we move on to the present. During the economic slowdown and for the first two years of our nation’s economic recovery, bicycle sales were down, which meant that many fewer people were buying new bikes and donating their old bikes to P4P. Our production fell to a low in 2016 that it not been seen since the very first days of the organization in the early 1990s. This has changed!

National bicycle sales are improving, which means we are getting more bikes per collection and there are more groups wanting to run collections. We are still looking for collections in new communities, but production is up.

This increased production, along with the bikes we will no longer ship to Rivas, adds up to a lot of containers needing a destination.

And this brings us to the future. We have not added a new bicycle program since 2011. Our active partners have gobbled up all of the containers we had to ship in the slow years, and our first goal is to resupply existing partners. But now we have enough bikes to add multiple new bicycle programs. This is exciting work. It is also extremely labor-intensive and can be costly.

Any new venture requires investment. A new partner organization overseas needs to get together a warehouse, a storefront, some employees, etc. This is a large undertaking. The model we have used for years, the Wilfredo Santana revolving-fund Model from Rivas, is that we donate the shipping costs of the first container as well as the contents. This gives enough funding to the new partner to get their feet on the ground and be able to start assuming shipping costs with the second container. We always donate the contents of a container, thanks to the generosity of our U.S. donors, large and small. Traditionally the contents of a container are worth three times the cost of shipping. That’s how we’ve been able to make almost 400 shipments overseas by leveraging the value of the bikes to pay the shipping.

New sewing machine projects are not that hard to fund because we’re just talking about a few hundred dollars. But shipping a container of bicycles costs many thousands of dollars. Potential new partners need to be screened really well before we can make such an investment. Paying the shipping costs to ship one of our containers overseas is an investment in that we expect these groups to become regular customers because they will be so happy with the bicycles they receive.

Many groups solicit containers of bicycles, some in countries with prohibitive transportation costs (inland Africa), some in countries that do not allow importation of used goods (most of South America). In other countries the governments are so corrupt that you can’t get through the door.

Last fall I made a sewing machine shipment to United Action for Children in Cameroon. I was extremely impressed by the UAC president, Orock Eyong — so impressed that in March 2018 P4P gifted a container of 462 bikes and 28 sewing machines to United Action for Children. It is due to arrive in Cameroon near the end of May. I am confident that UAC will become another of our long-term partnerships and that this is just the first of many containers we will be shipping to Cameroon.

On 21 April 2018, with the support of the Dariu Foundation of Switzerland, we shipped our first container to Can Tho Union City of Friendship Organization outside of Da Nang, Vietnam. In 2011 and 2012, with the help of the Dariu Foundation, we shipped 2 containers of bicycles to the upper Mekong Delta of Vietnam. In the intervening years, despite our best efforts, we just could not get the import permits. But we just received import permits to ship two containers of bicycles and up to 100 sewing machines. In the previous shipments we were not allowed to ship sewing machines so we hope we are in a new era of import policy in Vietnam.

We are always looking for interesting opportunities. On 19 May 2018 we shipped 450 bicycles and 50 sewing machines to our new partner GoBike in Kosovo! There are many areas in Eastern Europe which have never seen great investment or development, and are as poor as many African communities. With the assistance of a Clif Bar Family Foundation grant we were able to fund the shipment to Kosovo as well as a substantial part of the shipping costs to Cameroon. Thank you, Clif Bar.

David Schweidenback

Report from Cameroon, Spring 2018

By Orock Eyong
Spring 2018

United Action for Children and Sewing Peace are implementing a One-Girl-One-Sewing-Machine project in the Buea and Mamfe communities. The project aims at promoting entrepreneurial skills to enable young girls and women to create employment. The program targets young girls and women who are just starting as well as those already established in the tailoring business.

The zigzag sewing machine and other accessories sent by SP are very useful as they give the women experience in specialized sewing with different stitches. Some of the women have added new services because of the zigzag machine. The machine is a great favorite because it allows the women to do quick specialized tailoring while avoiding travel to use other machines that are costly and unreliable.

The stories from our beneficiaries are bitter–sweet. Though they earn a living from tailoring, they missed out on life experiences such as interacting with peers, being taken care of, and education. Such is the plight of many young girls from vulnerable families. They are forced to go into the labour market earlier in life to make ends meet. Since formal education is too costly for them, increasing accessibility to vocational skills is a good alternative. Through coaching, mentoring, and other training they can learn skills such as book keeping, costing and pricing, business planning, health and development.

UAC is excited and proud to bring these stories of the beneficiaries of the project.

Juliet Mungwa

My name is Juliet Mungwa and I am 31 years old. I dropped out of school from senior two because my parents didn’t have enough funds to keep me in school. Fortunately I had acquired the tailoring skill from a vocational institute. I was able to borrow a sewing machine from one of our family friends and I started tailoring. I have been tailoring for four years now. My clients, adult women and younger boys. I sew skirts, dresses, blouses and shorts. I earned between 25,000 FCFA (Central African CFA Franc) to 75,000 FCFA a month (U.S. $44 to U.S. $133). Thanks to two additional machines from SP, I am now between 50,000 FCFA and 100,000 FCFA (U.S. $89–$178). From this I am able to save 10,000 FCFA (U.S. $18) for myself, and I spend the rest on taking care of my 3 siblings since my mother cannot afford to take care of the family.

Loveline Aben

I am a 27-year-old single mother of five. Before the UAC/SP project I did not have enough money to buy the machines I needed to meet the demands of my customers. Because of donated machines from SP, I was able to increase the number of machines in my shop and keep up with demand. Thanks to the new machines, my income has increased and I am able to expand my shop and easily pay for food, health care, and the education of my children. I also reinvest part of my profits into the business to acquire working material. I get my orders from parents who bring the uniforms of their children. The photo shows some of the uniforms I tailored for a primary school.

My plan for the future is to get tenders from at least 3 schools to make uniforms. In that way I will have a stable clientele. I also want to get a new location in the trading centre where I can station my business to attract more clients. I hope to get some training in business planning, where my knowledge is limited. I am so grateful for the support given to us through the One-Girl-One-Sewing-Machine project.

Margaret Oyere

I am 35 years old and a mother of five children living in Bolifamba village community. After I completed my training, my husband, who is a subsistence farmer, bought me a manual sewing machine, which enabled me to establish a business as a seamstress in our community. I can now manage to work independently and save my own personal income instead of relying on my husband for daily and other needs. I am now able to assist my husband in the education of our children and taking care of their health.

Thanks to the donation of an electric sewing machine from SP through UAC, I can now promptly tailor modern dresses and all types of local casual/occasional wear for women and children. The machine has helped to boost my earnings and image before my customers. I now earn U.S. $35 per day without strain as compared to $25 before the new machine from SP. I am becoming a self-reliant, independent income earner.

P4P would like to thank the Clif Bar Family Foundation for their continuing support, that support allowed P4P to pay for the shipping costs of the first shipment of bicycles for our new program in Cameroon.

New Collection Partner: Habitat for Humanity, Warren County, New Jersey

Pedals for Progress is proud to announce a unique new collection partner: Habitat for Humanity of Warren County New Jersey. The partnership is due to Daryl Detrick of the computer science faculty at Warren Hills Regional High School (WH) in Warren, New Jersey. Daryl is also director of the WH Chess Club. He and his students have been volunteering at both Habitat for Humanity and Pedals for Progress for the last few years.

For the past several years, the Chess Club has gotten a number of bicycles from Habitat for Humanity for their annual Pedals for Progress bicycle collection. Habitat for Humanity has been collecting more bicycles than they can sell. P4P’s challenge is to get a minimum $10 donation with each bicycle and sewing machine; this donation is a fundamental part of our business model. To pick up a bicycle or sewing machine, prepare it for shipping, truck it to the warehouse, and pack it away in the warehouse so that is ready to be shipped, we spend an average of $20. Every time someone donates a bicycle or sewing machine with $10 we still need to independently raise another $10. We refuse a lot of bikes that don’t come with money — it is better to collect perhaps fewer and stay in business than collect a whole bunch and be bankrupt.

In 2018 Daryl got into a conversation with the Habitat county director Ben Eskow. Daryl mentioned that he might have to take fewer bikes because he was having trouble raising the $10 per bike that Pedals for Progress needs just stay in business.

Ben met with his staff and board at Habitat for Humanity. They were keenly aware that they were receiving many many more bicycles and sewing machines than their resale store could possibly use. Habitat for Humanity also has some discretionary funding that they can use for international programs. The board of Habitat for Humanity of Washington County decided that they would contribute the $10 per bike and sewing machine to Pedals for Progress and Sewing Peace. Therefore P4P/SP will now be able to pick up their extra bikes and sewing machines on a regular basis.

This is a wonderful collaboration between two institutions searching for a way to help the poor have a better life. Pedals for Progress has a new source of bicycles, which we hope may produce up to 250 bikes this first year. From the perspective of Habitat for Humanity, they have a volume problem and they have found a way to solve it within their mandate by partnering with Pedals for Progress and Sewing Peace. Win-win for the betterment of all.

New Partner in Kenya: Aid the Needy

By Tom Ademba
Spring 2018

Aid the Needy is a community-based organization registered by the Ministry of Social Services operating in Rachuonyo South Sub-County, Homa-Bay County in Kenya. It was started in 2007 through initiatives of local young people to spearhead development among unemployed young people. The organization has transformed lives through sustainable small-scale self-help initiatives. To help young people start their own businesses, we give them vocational skills, including training in sewing, masonry, and carpentry.

Vision: A community where all are empowered to prosper and lead dignified lives through self-help initiatives.

Objectives:

1. To build, equip, and manage a community training centre for young, underprivileged community members to acquire vocational training.
2. To train and educate young people out of school, with a special focus on young women, in skills that would enable them to be self reliant.
3. To improve the quality of life in the poverty-stricken villages, taking into consideration the cultural context and issues that hinder women from realizing their economic power and potential.
4. To stimulate and strengthen community groups, to help them develop income-generating activities, and to enable them to fight stigma and prejudice.

Some of our achievements:

• Since inception, the organization has trained many young people, including disabled youths, in vocational skills and enabled them to start their own businesses.
• With funds from Aidlink Ireland, we launched a micro-enterprise project to support small-scale farmers.
• We received funding from World Mercy Fund Austria to educate young farmers on the agricultural value-added chain so they can earn more income.
• We have recently approached Pedals for Progress to support our community with sewing machines. P4P shipped 72 electric sewing machines to support our training programs and help young people start income-generating projects.

We are grateful to all our partners and in this year we pay our sincere gratitude to Pedals For Progress for the way they fast-tracked the shipment of the sewing machines to support our community project.

P4P thanks the William and Helen Mazer foundation for their continued support and interest in the development of East Africa and for aiding in the cost of shipping 72 sewing machines to Kenya.

New Partner: GoBike Kosovo

By Kushtrim Gojani
Spring 2018

GoBike LLC is located in Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, Europe’s youngest country. Kosovo is a landlocked country bordering Albania, Montenegro, Serbia and Macedonia. Kosovo owes its independence largely to U.S., U.K. and other European partners who intervened in 1999 to stop ethnic cleansing of the Kosovo Albanian majority by the policies of Slobodan Milosevic, the President of ex-Yugoslavia. NATO troops are still present in Kosovo, and the U.S. Army has a base in Kosovo, Camp Bondsteel, which can hold up to 7000 soldiers.

The partnership between Kosovo and the U.S. is strategic. Kosovars are extremely grateful towards the U.S. for its continued support, and Kosovar Albanians (more than 90% of Kosovo’s population) tend to be very friendly towards the U.S. This gratitude is visible across Kosovo’s cities, but most notably in Pristina, where one can walk down Bill Clinton Boulevard, turn onto George Bush Street, and end up in Madeleine Albright Hall.

Like all post-war countries, Kosovo faces many political, economic, environmental and social challenges. Although it has the youngest population in Europe (more than 60% are below 25 years old), the unemployment rate remains at 30%, and at around 60% for youth and women. Kosovo is entirely reliant on energy produced from lignite, which is extremely polluting and a perennial health hazard. Post-war development and the corruption associated with it have taken a negative toll on the environment; quality of air, water and soil; increased congestion in cities; and deforestation in rural areas. Kosovo’s capital is often ranked one of the most polluted cities on earth.

In response to these problems, I established GoBike LLC in November 2017 with the mission to promote cycling and bicycle use in Kosovo, reduce transport-related carbon footprint, and improve Kosovo cyclists’ well-being. The vision of GoBike is a Kosovo society with an improved quality of life and environment. Partnering with Pedals for Progress has been crucial to getting this start-up business going.

GoBike aims to stimulate bicycle use, increase the number of cyclists in city streets and thus reduce pollution from traffic, and make cycling in Kosovo safer and enjoyable for all. We seek to identify, support, and promote all those who use bicycles as a main mode of transportation, and to lobby for improvements of urban infrastructure for cycling.

GoBike strives to be the number one bicycle provider in Kosovo, with specialized bike shops for rentals, sales, and maintenance. Our business will focus on the organization and promotion of cycling events (excursions, festivals, cycling clubs, etc.) and education of citizens on the importance of bicycle use. This, indirectly, will affect the greater demand for bicycle rental and sale services. In the future, GoBike plans to establish the very first public bicycle rental system, initially in the capital, with the hope of expanding to other cities.

GoBike’s chosen area of focus is not only important in and of itself, but it also has multiple benefits to the environment, contributes to health, and supports Kosovo’s economy and tourism. Kosovars brand themselves as “The Young Europeans”. Hopefully, Pristina and other Kosovo cities will have the cycling infrastructure and attitude towards bikes as other European cities like Copenhagen, Amsterdam, anand London.

Pedals for Progress, thank you ever so much for your contribution and support. I look forward to reporting the details of the concrete contribution our joint endeavor is making to ease Kosovo’s environmental and economic challenges.

Kosovo
Population: 1,920,079 (2017 est.)
Area: 10,908 sq km (slightly larger than Delaware)
GDP per capita: $12,003 (2017 est.)

New Partner in Peru: Alianza Arkana

By Laura Dev & Techa Beaumont
Spring 2018

Sewing Peace has just received a request for sewing machines for Shipbo artisans in the Peruvian Amazon. [Note: P4P/SP plans to ship sewing machines to Alianza Arkana on 20 June 2018.]

The machines are going to the Non Kene (Our Design) Project of the Pucallpa-based NGO, Alianza Arkana, a small not-for-profit that works with Indigenous Shipibo communities. They have experience facilitating workshops for women and youth, and have close relations with several women artisan groups in both the urban townships of Yarinacocha as well as rural Shipbo villages of Paoyhan, Santa Clara, Betania and San Francisco.

Indigenous Shipibo artisans aspire to improve skills and access a wider market for their products. Our vision is to link maintenance of cultural knowledge and improved livelihoods by developing professional capacity to establish a collective brand, including skills, business and leadership training, new equipment, seed funding, and networking to reach new markets for Shipibo artisans. The provision of sewing machines to these artisans will provide an essential resource to them in meeting these aspirations and improving their income potential.

Current Status: In June 2018 we will facilitate the first in a series of several workshops in response to requests by the women artisans in the Shipibo Native community of Paoyhan. Paoyhan is a small village in the Peruvian Amazon, 4–5 hours by boat from the nearest city, Pucallpa. The workshop aims to increase their skills at making clothes, sewing-machine use, and fashion design. Common to many Shipbo artisans whose livelihood is based on selling their wares to foreigners, these women wish to improve their artisanal products and expand their markets in order to meet basic material needs such as food, medicines and education for their children. Over 70% of Indigenous communities in the Amazon live in material poverty and around 30% in extreme material poverty. Traditional artisanal embroidery is an important part of Shipibo culture, and at least 80% of Shipibo households gain income from the sale of these products. However, the artisans here do not have easy access to markets to sell their wares, nor are they trained in using technologies like sewing machines that would enable them to make more complicated types of clothing that can sell for higher prices.

We have partnered with the women-run artesania committee in Paoyhan to plan this workshop, and are bringing in women from the Shipibo Meken artesania collective in Pucallpa, led by Jovita Maynas Bardales, to teach more advanced sewing techniques and fashion design. The goal is to provide training for the Paoyhan women artisans, as well as help build relationships between the rural and urban artisan groups.

Workshop Details: The proposed workshop series has a dual purpose to train participants in clothes-making, and (once acquired) how to use a foot-pedal sewing machine, and will also serve to build community and organizational capacity within and among women artisan groups. By the end of the first 3-day workshop, participants will have learned how to make sewing patterns, and will have made an article of clothing using their newly acquired skills. Ideally, this workshop will be followed by ongoing workshops to learn more advanced skills with sewing machines. We also hope to bring in other fashion-designers, and continue to develop capacities for entrepreneurship, marketing, and product development. These sewing machines will be essential to enable these women to continue to apply the skills learned in the workshop, and ongoing workshops and support will ensure that they have the skills needed to make good use of the machines toward their goals of creating better markets for their wares.

Distribution Strategy for Sewing Machines: Initially we will target participants in the Paoyhan workshop and provide pedal-powered sewing machines to the artesania committee in the village of Paoyhan for their own uses. If we find that current solar energy in the village is sufficient to power electric sewing machines, we will provide these as well. We expect to deliver 15–30 sewing machines to this village depending on availability of electricity.

Following this initial provision of sewing machines, we will plan for further provision of sewing machines to other communities in collaboration with workshops and other events that engage artisans in showcasing and further developing their skills in sewing and fashion design.

Based on the following criteria, sewing machines will be distributed to Shipibo artisans who:

1. live in urban townships of Pucallpa or more remote Shipibo villages and have either completed a workshop conducted by the project partners on sewing and fashion design or otherwise have demonstrated existing skills and knowledge of sewing machine techniques
2. are not in a financial position to buy their own sewing machine
3. will, based on successful participation in a workshop or existing demonstrated skills, be able to utilise the sewing machine to increase their livelihood.

Pricing:
The sewing machines will be provided free of charge to participating artisans. Where artisans or artisan collectives are not in extreme material poverty, they will be asked to make a token contribution of an artisanal product as an indication of their ‘buy-in’ and valuing of the tool provided. Money generated from the sale of the donated artisanal products will be used to fund future workshops.

Report from Albania: A Special Day for Bulqizë Kids and Communities

By the EcoVolis Team
Spring 2018

Bulqizë is an Albanian town about 40 miles northeast of Tirana, the capital. During the Communist era Bulqizë was a mining town well known for the high quality of its chromium and copper. At its peak it was home to around 50,000 people with full employment and excellent infrastructure – including schools, health centers, and roads. Mineral enrichment and smelting factories also provided employment for surrounding rural communities.

Today Bulqizë has been reduced to an isolated settlement with fewer than 14,000 inhabitants, who still live in the old and decaying Communist-era apartment buildings erected 45 years ago. Unemployment is high and the majority of families live at or below the poverty line. The tragic loss of life of men who work in the mines has left their families with little or no income. Community members and children thus feel financial and other kinds of pressure, and social problems continue to worsen.


On 1 May 2018, EcoVolis Albania headed to Bulqizë to meet with these communities and donate more than 20 bicycles to the most needy children and families. We also distributed boxes of clothes, toys, books, and modest supplies, providing some much needed relief. EcoVolis activists spent the day in the town talking to people about their lives, hardships, experiences, and daily issues. They also helped children to get on their bikes for the first time in their life, talked to them about their school, dreams, and what it is like growing up in Bulqizë. A local organization joined EcoVolis in this activity, helped us identify the most needy families, and facilitated our interaction with the local community.

At the end of the day, our EcoVolis team headed back to Tirana with fond memories of the children and their excitement when they got their new bikes. At the same time, we realize how much more support is needed in Bulqizë. With a series of similar activities in other vulnerable communities across Albania, our EcoVolis Team has given people there a happy break in their everyday routines. Though we can’t make a fundamental change in their lives overnight, we can give children the hope that their future can be different from their parents’ and we can inspire them to dream big like their peers elsewhere in Albania and the world.

Report from Guatemala, Spring 2018

[We just got this short note from FIDESMA, our long-time partner in Guatemala.]

Maria Arecely Reyes Tala is an eight-year-old fourth grader.

She is a girl with dreams. She is a happy, playful little person. She used to see the other girls with their bikes, and was always hoping to have a bicycle of her own. Now she has one.

From the first moment that she got her bike from FIDESMA, she was very eager to learn how to ride it. She learned very fast and now handles the bike very well and rides a little every day. She likes to run errands at the store and ride all around town making mischief.

Pedals for Progress and all their collaborators and volunteers bring smiles to Guatemalan and many other children.
Thanks to P4P for your support, which allows us to offer bikes at prices that everyone can afford.

Our Partners

P4P/SP Active Partnerships as of June 10, 2018 ( 🌐 Map)

ALBANIA, Tirana, PASS, community development: 5,902 bikes (2010 – 2018), 230 sewing machines (2010 – 2018)

CAMEROON, Buea, United Action for Children, youth development: 462 bicycles (2018), 100 sewing machines (2018)

ETHIOPIA, Solar Energy Foundation, small-business training and development: 72 sewing machines (2017)

GUATEMALA, Chimaltenango, Fundacion Integral de Desarrollo Sostenible y Medio Ambiente (FIDESMA), small-business promotion: 9,409 bikes (1999 – 2017), 274 sewing machines (2003 – 2017)

KENYA, Homa Bay, Aid the Needy, community development: 72 sewing machines (2018)

KOSOVO, Kastriot, GoBike, community development: 450 bikes (2018), 50 sewing machines (2018)

PERÚ, Ucayali region, Alianza Arkana, community development, 1st shipment June 20, 2018

TANZANIA, Dar es Salaam, She Can Foundation, community development: 217 sewing machines (2016 – 2017)

UGANDA, Mityana, Mityana Open Troop Foundation, community development: 137 sewing machines (2017)

UGANDA, Iganga, Office of the Mayor, community development: 69 sewing machines (2018)

VIETNAM, Dariu Foundation, Can Tho City, community development, 528 bikes (2018)

Other shipments of bicycles between 1991 and 2018 have gone to non-profit agencies in Appalachia, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Eritrea, Fiji, Ghana, Haiti, Honduras, India, Madagascar, Malawi, Mexico, Moldova, Mozambique, Namibia, New Guinea, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Panama, Peru, Senegal, Sierra Leone, the Solomon Islands, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Venezuela, and Vietnam, as well as other unlisted groups in Ghana and Nicaragua.

Other shipments of sewing machines between 1999 and 2018 have gone to non-profit agencies in Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Georgia, Honduras, Jamaica, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Panama, St. Vincent/Grenadines, Sierra Leone, and Yemen as well as other unlisted groups in Cameroon, Guatemala, Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda.

2015: 3,179 bikes, 310 sewing machines
2016: 2,760 bikes, 285 sewing machines
2017: 3,644 bikes, 533 sewing machines
2018 YTD: 2,431 bikes, 361 sewing machines

Twenty-Seven Year Bicycle Grand Total 154,907
Eighteen Year Sewing Machine Grand Total 4,188

New Jersey DEP 2017 Recycling Award

By Michael Sabrio
Fall 2017

In October 2017, Pedals for Progress won a New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) Recycling Award.

Dave Schweidenback accepted the award at the Awards Luncheon on 18 October 2017 in Neptune City, New Jersey. In the photo, Guy Watson, President of the Association of New Jersey Recyclers, is on the left in the black suit. Paul Orlando, Director of the Division of Energy Security and Sustainability, NJDEP, is on the right.

The award was for recycling activities in 2015 and 2016, but the application for the award was a chance to give the NJDEP an overall impression of P4P:

• The 4-page Program Narrative has information on our goals, history, business model, overseas partners, and domestic collectors and collection activities.
• The 14-page Supporting Documentation has lots of specifics:
  • what we shipped in 2015 and 2016
  • our financial statements from 2016
  • some info on collections
  • some documents from the red-tape nightmare that Dave deals with for every shipment: bills of lading, letters to foreign customs departments, declarations of contents for the shipping companies, …

The supporting docs also contain a much appreciated letter of support from Liz Sweedy, our contact at the Morris County Municipal Utilities Authority. Besides running one of our most successful regular collections, Liz arranges for us to pick up bikes from the Denville recycling center, where Gary and I just picked up 59 more bikes on November 8th. In the photo Gary is doing what he’s done many thousands of times: processing a bike. He’s removing the pedals, one of the steps we take to make the bike as small as possible so we can fit as many bikes as possible into a container. The photo also shows our very own sign at the recycling center: “Pedals for Progress Bike Corral. NO removal of bikes or parts.”



We’re not primarily a recycling organization, but when I did the math, I estimated that since 1991 we’ve shipped more than 4 million pounds of bikes and 74,000 pounds of sewing machines out of the U.S. Not all of this would have been dumped in landfills in the short term, but that’s where it would be sooner or later. And let’s not underestimate the encouragement we provide for cleaning out basements and garages!

Of course recycling is just a happy secondary consequence of our primary mission: to provide economic opportunity to people in developing countries.

Congratulations to P4P for this 2017 NJDEP Recycling Award. Now let’s get back to work.

President’s Message, Fall 2017

By Dave Schweidenback

Due to a confluence of events, both bicycle production and sewing machine production were sharply higher in 2017. An improving economy certainly means more bicycle sales and therefore more bicycles to recycle. P4P had a 12% increase in the production of bicycles; that means we were able to reach 12% more people.

Pedals for Progress is such a wonderful name. It explains in three words the total emphasis of our bicycle program. The name fits us. It never fit sewing machines. We had hit a ceiling of around 300 sewing machines per year, just couldn’t get the momentum to get much above 300. I determined that the problem was the name: Pedals for Progress did not explain collecting sewing machines.

We coined the name Sewing Peace and registered it with the states and commonwealths, the federal government and the bank. It is hard to have peace when you do not have prosperity. A sewing machine is a job in a box. Sewing Peace does explain what we do in two words. Each sewing machine gives someone the ability to earn a living or at least to get by. Just that one change — a name that explains what we do when we are collecting sewing machines — resulted in a 56% increase in sewing machine production! Sewing Peace went from 327 machines collected in 2016 to 511 collected in 2017. And all indications are that we will have a similar rise in production in 2018.

To manage this rise in production we have added a number of new sewing machine partners, and in early 2018 we will be adding the first new bicycle partnerships since 2010. It’s so nice when a plan works.

But it is hard work: over 40 tons of bicycles and sewing machines we went out and processed, loaded into an Avis truck, brought back to our warehouse, unpacked, sorted, packed away and then unpacked and repacked into international shipping containers. Phew! Just saying it makes me feel old. Each bicycle and sewing machine gets picked up six to eight times before it is loaded. That means our staff and volunteers lifted 240 tons of metal in 2017. Yes it is very hard work, but it is very worthwhile.

P.S. For fall 2017, we are trying yet another publishing method. Instead of producing separate newsletters — InGear for bikes and InStitch for sewing machines — we are combining all the articles into a single newsletter. Let us know what you think.

Treasurer’s Message, Fall 2017

Hi.

I’m Johnny Alexander, Treasurer of Pedals for Progress. Dave and I were Peace Corps volunteers and roommates in Sucua, Ecuador, for all of 1979. He often tells the story of our Peace Corps landlord who put to productive advantage one of the few bicycles in Ecuador. Sr. Peña was part of the inspiration for the founding of P4P.

Several years ago I joined the Board of Trustees and was elected treasurer. My wife Jane Divinski and I are long-time donors. I am starting this column to offer more financial insight and transparency to P4P.

You donors, volunteers, and stakeholders are the core of P4P. It is your time and treasure that sustain and power P4P. Because P4P operates as an IRS-qualified 501(c)(3) nonprofit, your donations may be used to reduce your tax payments.

I want to lead off my first column with an innovative and tax-saving way for retirees to donate to P4P. If you have an IRA or a 401k plan, this should be of interest to you. At age 70.5, you must begin to take Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs). You of course may begin your distributions earlier if you need or wish to. All IRA/401k distributions, except those in Roth accounts, increase your taxable income. The IRS will permit you to direct your IRA/401k administrator to make directed donations to 501(c)(3) nonprofits like P4P. The benefit is that if the money goes directly from your IRA/401k to a nonprofit, you avoid including it in your taxable income. Many wealthier seniors dislike the RMD because it can push them into a higher tax bracket and raise their taxes. The direct donation approach prevents this tax bracket creep. The outcome is that your total tax is lowered by a greater amount than if you report the income and take the deduction for your donation. If you wish to read more, here is a really good article, with examples, from the Wall Street Journal: The Benefit of Donating Your Required IRA Distributions to Charity.

I am sure that your tax advisor and financial institution can help you understand how advantageous this can be for you, given your financial situation.

In peace,

Pedals for Progress Bike 150,000

Fall 2017 InGear

The Summer 2017 InGear newsletter has a partial report on bike number 150,000. The report was partial because at publication time we had collected, packed, and shipped the bike, but it did not yet have an owner. Now that it does, we want to tell the whole story in one place.

Collected on Long Island

On April 1, 2017, the Long Island Returned Peace Corps Volunteers collected P4P bike number 150,000. The Long Island RPCVs have been one of our most successful collection partners. They rotate collections around Long Island to maximize their reach. Their first P4P collection was in 2003, their second in 2005, and they’ve held collections every year since. The Long Island RPCVs are featured in this article from Summer 2011.

Shipped from New Jersey

On April 22nd, volunteers from the Warren Hills High School Chess Club helped us load 575 bicycles into a 40-foot container bound for Chimaltenango, Guatemala. The Chess Club and their faculty advisor, Daryl Detrick, are no strangers to P4P. Along with the Computer Science Club, they have run 8 collections and packed 4 containers.

This was our 18th shipment to our partners at FIDESMA, for a total of 9,460 bicycles.

Arrived in Guatemala

Our partners at FIDESMA report that bike 150,000 arrived in San Andrés Itzapa, Guatemala, at midday, June 6th.

FIDESMA, our Guatemala partner, got our 100,000th bike in 2006. FIDESMA has been our partner since 1999. Besides their bike program, FIDESMA runs programs in health and special ed, job skills and training, and environmental conservation.

We are good friends as well as professional partners with the staff at FIDESMA. The summer 2012 InGear newsletter has an article about a visit to New Jersey from Señora Maria Margarita Caté de Catú, founder of FIDESMA.

Here is the note and the inventory report from FIDESMA about Guatemala container #18 with the famous bike:

P4P keeps track only of adult versus kids’ bikes. FIDESMA categorizes bikes in much more detail than we do! Also, we sometimes forget that plywood, which we use in the containers to separate rows of bikes, can also be useful to our partners. We translate the FIDESMA reports from the Spanish. In case you’re wondering, the Spanish word for chopper is ‘chopper’.

Delivered to Its New Owner

The owner of P4P bike number 150,000 is Noelia Chiquitá, a 17-year-old in her third year of high school. Noelia lives in Chimaltenango, Guatemala.

She plans to use her bike every afternoon to buy supplies for the family store, where she helps her mother in the afternoon after school.

The bike will also help her stay in shape and stay healthy.

Onward!

Recent collections have made a good start on our next 150,000 bicycles. Our trailers are full and we are waiting for the next opportunity to make a shipment.

Report from Albania, Fall 2017

Fall 2017 InGear

Albania has one of our most active partners, PASS/Ecovolis, which runs a wide variety of social and environmental programs. An Update from March 2017 mentions two of their programs. One uses P4P/SP sewing machines to make reusable shopping bags and the the other operates a children’s library, LibrAria.

Ened Mato, the PASS director, recently reported on two other PASS projects.

The School of Nature is a children’s program in the Albanian capital, Tirana. The goal of the program is to give urban kids some experience in nature while having fun and learning. Here are some examples of School of Nature activities:

• raise a tent camp
• plant different kinds of flowers
• read books
• paint
• take canoe trips on the artificial lake in Tirana

The Elders’ Academy is a program to teach older adults to ride bicycles. Some of the riders have not ridden a bike for many years and some have never learned to ride. I don’t know about you, but the thought of learning to ride a bike at age 50 or 60 sounds a little scary, especially in a busy city like Tirana. But in the photos we’ve seen, these “elders” look like they’re having a blast.

Ghana: Values of the Bicycle

By Ohemaa Sarfoa
Fall 2017 InGear

Because of its numerous uses, a bicycle could be a very cherished vehicle for its possessor. Forty-year-old Mr. Sapaku is a tailor. He has been using a bicycle in his daily dealings for the past ten years. Aside from the thrifty significance of the bicycle, it unknowingly gets rid of some health-related deficits in his body, as biking is a form of exercise.

As part of his schedule, he rides his bicycle to Winneba and back and so is able to keep fit. With his bicycle, he is able to procure all his sewing materials. Further, he distributes his finished garments on his bike. Owing to his work ethic, he never runs out of customers and this is so because of the bicycle. It has contributed a significant increment to his income.

However, recent years have not been so favourable for Mr. Sapaku. His bicycle broke down and efforts to repair it have been futile. Despite his efficiency in his work, his productivity saw a drastic decline. Without his bike, he was not able to deliver finished garments on time. Neither could he save money, now that he had to spend so much on public transportation.

Getting a new bicycle from WEBike caused a remarkable change for Mr. Sapaku. He is now able to save money he used to spend on transportation. In addition, he no longer has to deal with heavy traffic jams.

In summation, the bicycle is a frugal, time-efficient, and health-improving vehicle.

Ghana: Water as a Necessity

By Ohemaa Sarfoa
Fall 2017 InGear

One of the most important commodities in the lives of all living things is water: the body is made up of 70% water, and plants as well as animals need water for growth. Water is an undeniably substantive commodity in the livelihood of humans.

In spite of the importance of water, access to potable water is a great hurdle in some parts of West Africa, specifically Ghana. In some parts of the northern region of Ghana, human beings share the same water with animals. Animals also need water, but in these areas cattle drink and release their droppings in the same lakes and streams humans use.

Sabulugu is a village in the northern region of Ghana where there is little or no access to clean water. Inhabitants have to walk 3.5km to get drinkable water.

This has been the situation in Sabulugu for many years. Thanks to WEBike, though, there has been a change. The need to walk long hours for clean water has now been eliminated. Residents simply tie their water containers to their bicycles and bike to the stream and back in 30 to 40 minutes.

WE EXPRESS OUR PROFOUND GRATITUDE TO WEBIKE!

[Editor’s note: Although we have not been able to get a picture of the water carriers in Ghana, we have seen bicycle water-carriers before. In rural areas, the average Ugandan lives 4 miles from the nearest well. The photograph in this post is of a water carrier from Koytera Uganda. Water carriers put a 10-gallon jerrycan on each side of the back wheel, suspended from a piece of 1” x 3” wood, and then place two more 10-gallon jerrycans on top. That is almost 350 pounds of water! Then they push the bicycle to someone’s house where they dump the water into that person’s cistern for a few shillings and then ride back to the well with the empty plastic containers on the bicycle. They repeat this process dozens of times per day to earn a living and to supply people with the water they need.]

The Path to Financial Stability and Better Health in Uganda, One Stitch at a Time

By Patricia Hamill
Fall 2017 InStitch

Unemployment is not an unfamiliar topic these days. Reports on the economy and job growth are broadcast daily with the intention to give us a sense of momentum and hope. What many realize of course is that there is still a dearth of jobs with adequate compensation. Are the openings that are listed truly available or are they only posted because of policy or legalities and already filled internally? As frustrating as this is, people in developing countries don’t often have the opportunity to even question if a job is open, or to whom. There may not be any, filled or otherwise. This is the ongoing struggle we’ve been trying to have an impact on with our bikes and sewing machines, and our partners remind us how much our efforts change lives and futures.

We recently received a letter from Mathew Yawe, Director of the Mityana Open Troop Foundation (MOTF) in Mityana, Uganda, highlighting the success our program Sewing Peace has had in enabling young people and families to combat the devastation that the HIV/AIDS crisis has wreaked in the region. The loss of life to this epidemic has been reduced over the years, but the long-term effects on families and the economy are still quite apparent. That is why this Non-Government Organization (NGO) Mityana Open Troop Foundation has focused on aiding people in creating financial opportunities for themselves. The resulting income allows children to go to school and graduate, and thus be more likely to qualify for steady employment or business ownership.

The direct correlation between education and employment and a lowered rate of disease and unplanned pregnancy is evident in much current research. So, of course, access to and use of doctors’ services and preventative healthcare is more likely only when one is able to afford the services. As a partner in the cause to fight poverty and its consequences, Sewing Peace shipped 73 refurbished sewing machines to MOTF in July for their vocational workshop in tailoring and design. The project recruits and trains the most vulnerable of the local population in many skills, including tailoring and garment production. The ratio was 1 machine to 4 people. Some of the machines were also made available for program graduates as start-up machines so they could create their own businesses.

In August, MOTF met with 51 residents in the village of Semukombe Mpigi to donate 2 of the sewing machines. The need here is palpable. So often, parents cannot afford the fees involved in sending their children to school. The cost of uniforms, books, and even transportation is prohibitive. The lack of access to proper health education adds to young women being expelled from school because of unplanned pregnancies. There is also the issue of families that lack an adult because one or both parents have succumbed to HIV/AIDS and the children cannot begin to consider any option other than survival.

Here, the death of one particular man had greatly affected his two wives. One widow had 6 children. One had 5. The children had all dropped out of school because there was absolutely no income for fees. Access to medication, clothing, and food was all but eliminated. The donated machines would be the only tools these women have to reverse their circumstances and provide a stable future for the 11 youngsters. With care and maintenance, the sewing machines can also become the tools that some of the children can make use of to start their own businesses in the village or in areas like the capital city Kampala, about 22 miles away, where the population is much larger and the demand for school uniforms and other clothing promises a steady income. Ultimately, this kind of program can assist women in avoiding total dependence on their spouses or sons. Husbands and sons can rely on their whole family to participate in maintaining their wellbeing.

As our readers well know, project sustainability is always at the root of the success of an endeavor and MOTF must also consider the longevity of their vocational programs. Thus, some of the machines were sold to local tailors, offered at a fair and more affordable price than one could find in Kampala. These donations from P4P and the reasonable selling prices offered by MOTF are not easy to provide because the cost of shipping to inland locations like Uganda is substantial. Transporting the containers from the port in the coastal city of Mombasa, Kenya, over the approximately 700 miles of road to Kampala, Uganda, is not a simple task. The logistics of viable routes and reliable trucking becomes quite complicated causing the endeavor to cost half again as much money as it would to ship from New York City, through the Panama Canal, past Singapore, to Sri Lanka, and then to Kampala. This extra expense cannot be transferred to those in need, so it is our supporters and volunteers who ensure that no obstacle prevents the machines from getting to their destination.

As always, the effort continues. The private vocational institution MOTF is now looking to expand its program to include embroidery once a reliable machine can be located so they can also provide logos and names of the local schools whose uniforms they sew. With a continued flow of funding and sewing machines for training and sale, the reality of healthy, long lives and income stability in this region of Africa is attainable.

Reports from Uganda, 2017

By Mathew Yawe
Fall 2017 InStitch

[Our new partner in Uganda is the Mityana Open Troop Foundation, started as a Boy Scout group but now admitting girls. Their director Mathew Yawe has sent us several reports on their activites in 2017. For more perspective on Uganda in 2017, see the post in this newsletter by Patricia Hamill.]

Report of 29 July 2017

On 24 July 2017 Mityana Open Troop Foundation received 73 sewing machines from Sewing Peace USA. There were manual and electric machines all in good condition and looking so attractive.

Currently we have been lacking sewing machines to be given to our vocational project graduates as start-up tools to enable them to start their own workshops.

Here are our plans for the machines:

• 23 Machines will be installed in our vocational workshop.
• 10 Machines will be sold to graduates of November 2017, each for 200,000 Uganda Shillings (UGX): US $55. This money will be used to cater for shipping costs, custom taxes, ECU charges, handling charges, and transport to Mityana. The profits will be used to pay for the next shipment, which we hope to request this year.
• 40 machines will be sold to the artisans who need them at UGX 250,000 (US $69). Currently a sewing machine in Uganda costs US $83 or more.

Proposed Sewing Machine Workshop In Our Town

We have planed to set up a sewing shop and workshop in our Town of Mityana, where we shall be selling the sewing machines at a cheaper price, carrying out machine maintenance, knitting, making school uniforms, school badges, and embroidery work, as there is no any Embroidery machine in Mityana.

However, at our workshop, we shall be selling and repairing mountain bikes. And our trainees will be trained in how to repair sewing machines and bikes at our town workshop.

The generated funds, will help paying our vocational instructors / teachers.

Expenditures on the Shipped Sewing Machines

• Shipping from Sri Lanka: UGX 2,880,000 ($800)
• Uganda customs charges: UGX 1,520,700 ($422)
• ECU charges: UGX 2,261,000 ($604)
• Handling fees by Bolore Co: UGX 470,000 ($130)
• Transport from Kampala to Mityana: UGX 140,000 ($39)
  

  ---

• Total expenditure: UGX 7,271,700 ($1995)

I once again extend sincere thanks to Mr. David Schweidenback of the Pedals for Progress / Sewing Peace project. All volunteers worked so tirelessly in collecting and refurbishing and packing our donated sewing machines. They look so good and attractive. Thank you so much.

I finally thank Mr. Chris Eldridge, our project partner in the UK, who paid all the shipping costs and gave us much support in getting the machines to Mityana, Uganda.

Report of 27 October 2017

Dear fellow scouters,

Today, 27 October 2017, I have conducted an Investiture Ceremony where 12 cubs, 15 junior scouts, and 8 rover scouts (totaling to 35 scouts) were investitured into the World Wide Scout Movement.

The function took place at the Trio Primary school. The scouts demonstrated marching, performed a flag ceremony, recited the scout promise and scout law, sang, etc.

Long live scouting.

Report of 4 November 2017

Hi fellow scouters & friends,

Today on Saturday, 4 November 2017, Mityana Open Troop foundation vocational trainees and scouts have volunteered at the Mityana District Police Station: hair dressing, weaving, hair washing, hair styling, hair braiding, and sewing. All the services were free of charge, done towards our vocational project trainee commissioning, due to take place on 18 November 2017.

For that event, we would like to cater for food for 600 guests and for the purchase of start-up tools for the graduating trainees, to enable them to start their own jobs right away.

Report of 18 November 2017 Graduation Ceremony

[We got another report from Uganda on the Mityana Open Troop graduation ceremony of November 18th. That report arrived too late for the original publication of the newsletter, but here are some excerpts. Click here for the complete report.]

Achievements

• This is our sixth graduation ceremony.
• The government of Uganda, through its Ministry of Education, supports our vocational project by giving funds for the instructors. The small fee we charge trainees caters for electricity, maintenance, and feeding, which is expensive.
• We registered the vocational project under the Uganda Ministry of Education.
• Kolping Mityana Womens project supports our project by sponsoring 10 orphans.
• Three Charity organizations — Fields of Life, Africa Renewal Ministries, and Unbound — sponsor some vulnerable children at our project.
• With support from profits got from the sold sewing machines from Pedals For  Progress / Sewing Peace Project USA, plus some funds donated from Dr. Knight Anthony of Tools With a  Mission UK, enable us  construct the Girls dormitory which is to accommodate 50 students.
• We have been provided with educational seminars by hair beauty companies such as Movit and Darling.
• Pedals for Progress donates sewing machines and bicycles to our project, which have up-lifted and supported many of our activities.
• Carried out voluntary community work by cleaning and sweeping Mityana Central market, Taxi park, and surrounding streets.
• Volunteered in making hair dressing & weaving , sewing clothes for police ladies and police men Of Mityana Police station, at free cost. However, we carry out good turn in communities, as scouts.

Cameroon 2017: New Partner, United Action for Children

By Orock Eyong
Fall 2017 InStitch

United Action for Children (UAC), based in Buea, in southwest Cameroon, is proud to be one of the newest partners of Pedals for Progress and Sewing Peace. UAC was founded in 1996 and registered as a non-profit community-based child- and youth-centered organization engaged in Grooming Small Minds for a Big Future and developing a caring society for children and young people through innovative programs.



The overall goal of UAC is to contribute to the improvement of living conditions of affected populations such as rural families, children, and women. In line with its mission, UAC is involved in the following projects to meet the ever increasing needs of the affected populations:

• Basic Education to orphans and vulnerable children
• Entrepreneurship Education to out-of-school youths and low-income women
• School on Wheels programme to assist rural children and women
• Primary Health Care to cater for basic health needs of the rural communities
• Vocational Training to equip youths and low income women with employable skills and to make them job creators

The partnership with Pedals for Progress is very timely and important in helping UAC with its mission of strengthening rural children, women, and families. The job of equipping low income women, children, and young people with employable skills and making them job creators will be made easy as a result of strategic support from Sewing Peace through the donation of sewing machines. Indeed, 72 sewing machines are in transit now.

Ethiopia 2017: New Partner, Solar Energy Foundation

A Solar Energy Foundation (SEF) group based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, is one of our new 2017 Sewing Peace partners. Their new program is entitled “Marginalized Women’s Training on Sewing and Tailoring”. This Solar Energy Foundation project has the following goals:

• To train marginalized women in sewing and tailoring to help them become economically self-sustaining.
• To rehabilitate marginalized women by creating an enabling environment for self-employment using their sewing and tailoring skills.
• To help and support women economically, socially, and morally.
• To contribute to the development of marginalized women and support their dreams for a better future.

With the generous help of the Clif Bar Family Foundation and the Jack & Pauline Freeman Foundation, we shipped the sewing machines in March, 2017. At that time we published this post on Ethiopia #1. We were then in a bewildering bureaucratic nightmare with the Ethiopian Revenues and Customs Authority concerning what information they needed on each machine. The nightmare is over and we are happy to report that the machines have been delivered to our partner. (We’ve just gotten a report from Samson Tsegaye, the program director.)

The sewing and tailoring training will be held in Rema, one of the SEF training centers, located in the Mida Woremo district of North Shewa Zone, about 230km from Addis Ababa. The training is held in three three-month cycles starting in June 2017. Each session will include 20–25 trainees.

The trainees will be nominated from the North Shewa zone in partnership with the zonal education and women affairs office. Approximately seventy women will be the beneficiaries of this program. Those who successfully complete the training will be supplied with one sewing machine whereby they can begin their own business.

The training program covers the women’s travel cost as well as providing a daily allowance for basic needs such as food while they are in the training program.

We will report back when we have some results from the program.

Here is the full proposal for the program.

Ethiopia Report, November 2017

By Samson Tsegaye
Fall 2017 InStitch

Ethiopia has a population of more than 100 million. More than 85% live in rural areas. Women have most of the household responsibilities. Women and girls in Ethiopia are strongly disadvantaged compared to boys and men in several respects, including literacy, health, livelihood, and basic human rights. They also suffer from low status in their society and lack social support networks.

Since 2005, we at Stiftung Solarenergie-Solar Energy Foundation are trying to solve some of these problems in Ethiopia by providing solar technologies.

When I met Mr. David and he explained what Sewing Peace (SP) is doing, I was very impressed and asked him to support our disadvantaged women in Ethiopia. He agreed and we started the procedure.

Sewing Peace promised to donate 72 sewing machines and we at the foundation promised to provide training and disbursement of the machines. We will select disadvantaged women to train and give them one sewing machine to generate income and improve their lives. Here is our complete proposal.

The process of importing the sewing machines to Ethiopia was very tiresome. Several times our customs and government offices requested new, authenticated documents from SP and required getting these documents from New Jersey to the Ethiopian embassy in Washington, D.C., to Ethiopia. For each machine, first they requested serial numbers, and then they requested date and place of manufacture. The process was complicated and expensive, but Mr. David made it happen — we received 72 sewing machines in Ethiopia on 24 July 2017. I would like to appreciate and thank Mr. David for his patience with the long, complicated import process.

We are now waiting for the training of the women and disbursement of sewing machines. But, due to the current political problems in the country, we couldn’t proceed according to our plans. Travelling out of town is difficult. We hope that this situation will be better soon and we will proceed with our programs.

We will soon finalize our project and will report in detail to Sewing Peace.

Best Regards,
Samson Tsegaye, Stiftung Solarenergie-Solar Energy Foundation Country Director
17-Nov-2017
Addis Ababa,Ethiopia

Report from Tanzania, Fall 2017

Fall 2017 InStitch

The Honorable Sophia Mwakagenda is a Member of the Parliament of Tanzania and the founder of the P4P/SP partner in Tanzania, the She Can Foundation. Starting in April 2016 she visited different constituencies in order to listen to the people and implement some of her She Can programs. A report from the Summer 2017 InStitch newsletter described the first part of that trip. We now have this new report on the next part of the trip: to the Chunya and Temeke regions of Tanzania.

Chunya Constituency Visit

MP Mwakagenda presented two sewing machines to the Chunya Tailoring group, which is mix of women and men in Chunya constituency. They are in a joyous mood. This group started in 2007. They have about 12 sewing machines and now with the two new machines they are starting a tailoring school for girls and boys. It has 10 Members who are John Joseph, Ande Mwimba, Martina Kibali, Ndongolela Matembo, Twalangete Mwendemseke, Rehema Ambindwile, Julia Mwabenga, Mulyambate Mtagete, Jane Jansi and Asia Syabakeke. The group is an economic empowerment group for both men and women.

Ms. Martina Kipesile is Chairperson of the Msichana Girls Group. Ms. Kipesile, along with Christina Kalenga and other members of the group, use the five Sewing Peace machines that were distributed in the Chunya Constituency to make products that they sell. The Group also trains young women in the use of the machines.

Temeke Constituency Visit

MP Mwakagenda gave a sewing machine to the women’s group of the Temeke Moravian Church in Temeke Constituency. Also in the photo are the Reverend Timothy Mwankenja and Ms. Stella Sematela, Chairperson of the Women’s Wing of the Church. The women’s group gives food and clothes to needy people around the church. The sewing machines will increase the church income for that purpose.

Conclusion

She Can Foundation staff will follow up during November and December 2017 on the different women’s groups which were given the sewing machines to see how they progress in terms of uplifting the living standards of women in the two locations. The technical staff will give the women support services to improve on their projects.

P4P Major Donors

John Alexander & Jane Divinski
Biovid
Sherman Carll 
CCG Facilities Integration, Inc.
Jon and Diane Claerbout
Clif Bar Family Foundation
Eileen Fisher, Inc.
The Jack & Pauline Freeman Foundation
Jill & John Gower
Pamela Hanlon Charitable Fund
Jack & Donna Haughn
Robert & Laura Hockett
Leo & Helen Hollein
Elliott & Kathleen Jones
Gary & Mary Kamplain
The Herman & Seena Lubcher
    Charitable Foundation, Inc.
Dorothy Magers
David Schweidenback & Geraldine Taiani
Thomas & Nancy Tarbutton
Wais Family Fund
Andrew Williams & Emily Winand
XA Foundation
Kermit Leslie Young, Jr.

Pedals for Progress 2017 Board of Directors & Trustees

John Alexander, Treasurer
UNIT 3230, BOX 470
DPO, AA 34031 – 0470

David Schweidenback, President & CEO, pd4ls@comcast.net
86 E MAIN ST
HIGH BRIDGE, NJ 08829

John Strachan
95 OLD YORK RD
HOPEWELL, PA 18938

Andrew Williams
210 PAVONIA STREET
JERSEY CITY, NJ 07303

Robert Zeh, Secretary
5 WOODS EDGE CT
CLINTON, NJ 08809

Staff

Gary Michel, Vice President, gary@p4p.org

Lori Smith, Office Manager, lori@p4p.org (908) 638-4811

Michael Sabrio, Webmaster, michael.sabrio@gmail.com

Our Partners

P4P/SP Active Partnerships as of November 19, 2017 ( 🌐 Map)

ALBANIA, Tirana, PASS, community development: 5,902 bikes (2010 – 2018), 230 sewing machines (2010 – 2018)

CAMEROON, Buea, United Action for Children, youth development: 72 sewing machines (2018)

ETHIOPIA, Solar Energy Foundation, small-business training and development: 72 sewing machines (2017)

GHANA, Accra, WEBikes, transport/small business/community development: 9,578 bikes (2006 – 2017), 556 sewing machines (2006 – 2017)

GUATEMALA, Chimaltenango, Fundacion Integral de Desarrollo Sostenible y Medio Ambiente (FIDESMA) small-business promotion: 9,409 bikes (1999 – 2017), 274 sewing machines (2003 – 2017)

KYRGYZSTAN, Cholpon-Ata, S.O.S, Kinderhoff, small-business promotion: 55 sewing machines (2008 – 2016)

LIBERIA, Monrova, Education Care Africa, Primary School children in Africa, 70 sewing machines (2017)

NICARAGUA, Rivas, EcoBici, community development: 25,569 bikes (1992 – 2017), 194 sewing machines (2003 – 2017)

TANZANIA, Dar es Salaam, She Can Foundation, community development: 217 sewing machines (2016 – 2017)

UGANDA, Mityana, Mityana Open Troop Foundation, community development: 137 sewing machines (2017)

Other shipments of bicycles between 1991 and 2017 have gone to non-profit agencies in Appalachia, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Eritrea, Fiji, Ghana, Haiti, Honduras, India, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mexico, Moldova, Mozambique, Namibia, New Guinea, Pakistan, Panama, Peru, Senegal, Sierra Leone, the Solomon Islands, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Uganda, Vietnam, and Venezuela as well as other unlisted groups in Nicaragua.

Other shipments of sewing machines between 1999 and 2017 have gone to non-profit agencies in Cameroon, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Georgia, Honduras, Jamaica, Moldova, Panama, St. Vincent/Grenadines, Sierra Leone, Uganda, and Yemen as well as other unlisted groups in Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Tanzania.

1997 total: 5,468
1998 total: 6,287
1999 total: 7,001
2000 total: 8,970
2001 total: 9,174
2002 total: 11,576
2003 total: 11,808
2004 total: 11,879
2005 total: 8,536
2006 total: 8,961
2007 total: 7,622
2008 total: 6,628
2009 total: .6,652
2010 total: 4,823
2011 total: 4,157
2012 total: 3,769
2013 total: 3,598
2014 total: 1,047
2015: 3,179 bikes, 310 sewing machines
2016: 2,760 bikes, 285 sewing machines
2017: 3,664 bikes, 533 sewing machines
2018 YTD: 973 bikes, 102 sewing machines

Twenty-Seven Year Bicycle Grand Total 153,467
Eighteen Year Sewing Machine Grand Total 3,939

Total Shipped

Pedals for Progress Sewing Peace Post Office Box 312 High Bridge, NJ 08829 908-638-4811 pd4ls@comcast.net www.p4p.org

June 15, 2017

Dear Donors,

Winter finally ended—I thought it never would—and we are back to collecting bicycles and sewing machines. This spring we have already made three shipments of sewing machines to new partners in Ethiopia, Uganda, and Liberia. And we have made two shipments of bicycles: we shipped a container of bikes to WeBikes in Ghana, their 20th container, and we made our 19th shipment to our long-term partner FIDESMA in Guatemala. This shipment to Guatemala was very special indeed because within that 40-foot container was our 150,000th bicycle shipped!

For the first time, our newsletters are online only.

Traditionally we have sent our newsletters InGear and InStitch, both full of great stories, prior to sending a solicitation letter such as this. The world is changing and P4P/SP needs to change with it. Printing and mailing a hardcopy newsletter costs several thousand dollars. To save money, we are not going to print our summer newsletter; for the first time we are going to have this summer’s newsletters online only. Being old school, I like to have a physical newsletter that I can hold in my hand and read and we will probably print such a newsletter in November for the end of the year. But for now our summer newsletters are going digital. They are available with all our newsletters on our website . The newsletters have exciting success stories from Central America, Africa, and Central Asia that I am sure will inspire you.

Our crew does the hard work of collecting, preparing, and shipping the thousands of bicycles and hundreds of sewing machines we ship every year. P4P/SP gives thousands the opportunity to lift themselves from poverty but we are basically a logistics company. We transfer opportunity by taking recycled goods and moving them to where they can do the most good. We need your continuing financial support to accommodate the domestic trucking, warehousing, and international shipping of our growing production.

Please make a donation today. Your donations guarantee many individuals the opportunity to be successful.

Sincerely,
 

 
Dave Schweidenback
Founder and President
Pedals for Progress
 
 
 
Pedals for Progress is a New Jersey 501(c)3 nonprofit corporation.

President’s Letter, Summer 2017

Dear Friends of P4P & SP,

Welcome to our first digital newsletter! With this format we can bring you much more information because we’re not constrained to a set number of pages. We will also save the significant cost of postage, which we can then use for our core mission of collecting and shipping income-generating potential around the world.

150,000 bikes shipped! That sure is a lot of opportunity for a heck of a lot of people, and let’s not forget the 3,700+ sewing machines we have distributed worldwide. We remain true to our original mission of proper recycling here in the U.S. for the benefit of motivated people worldwide who want a better life and are willing to work for it.

We should also give a shout out to our most amazing partners overseas, for it is those overseas partners who are responsible for the distribution. They are also responsible for finding and writing these incredible success stories that we bring you in our newsletters. We have always felt that it is important that we supply firsthand accurate stories to you the supporters of P4P so you can judge the effectiveness of our programs.

Now 26 years old, P4P has survived many turns up and down in the economy, but we have managed to stay in business because of your support. We have also managed to stay in business because of the incredible staff, some of whom right now as I write this on a Saturday in May, are standing out in the pouring rain processing bicycles. And next weekend they will be in a steel container packing those bicycles in 100º heat! P4P puts an incredible amount of sweat equity into every shipment. From Granby, Connecticut, to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and from Westchester, New York, down to Middletown, Delaware, our staff covers a very large domestic footprint on a shoestring budget. It is always hard physical work moving tons of bicycles but Gary always seems to do it with a smile.

I hope you enjoy both InGear and InStitch. These stories certainly inspire us to work a little harder pushing production higher so that we can offer opportunity to an increasing number of people every year.

Sincerely,

David Schweidenback

Report from Tanzania

Summer 2017 InStitch

Introduction

The Honorable Sophia Mwakagenda is a Member of the Parliament of Tanzania. From 1 April 2016 to 20 March 2017 the Honorable Mwakagenda visited different constituencies of the Longido and Ngorongoro districts in the Arusha region, and the districts of Rungwe, Kyela, Mbarali, and Mbeya in the Mbeya region. This visit was a continuation of visits countrywide in order to listen to the people and implement some of her programs through her NGO She Can Foundation.

The visits in Mbeya and Arusha regions were coordinated by the Office of Members of Parliament located in Mbeya city.

Honorable Mwakagenda was accompanied by a team of 4 researchers and assistants: Edwin Mwaitebele, Emmanuel Ngwetta, Mpegwa Mwakang’ata, and Frank Kayumba.

The Purpose of the Visit

The purpose of the visit was to help women’s entrepreneur groups by giving them means of production, like sewing machines, to improve their productivity in their local settings.

Specific Objectives

• To meet women’s social and economic groups in different areas to hand over support and equipment including sewing machines
• To provide some knowledge and skills to these groups

Activities

The team met six women’s social and economic groups from seven constituencies of Arusha and Mbeya regions with the aim of sharing with them knowledge and skills on entrepreneurship for them to improve their work. The MPs handed over sewing machines during this visit. In Mbeya region and Arusha region, which is Masaai, the MPs handed over a total of 61 sewing machines.

The Honorable Mwakagenda gave four sewing machines to women’s entrepreneur groups in Mbeya urban constituencies.

In her visit of 17 and 18 March to the Longido district of Arusha region, Honorable Mwakagenda gave a sewing machine to a 21-year-old woman known as Grace from the Ngarenaibo village. The machine gives Grace employment and should improve her family’s economic situation.

Numbers of Sewing Machines Given

From 1 April 2016 to 23 March 2017, Honorable Sophia Mwakagenda gave 73 sewing machines as follows in Mbeya and Arusha regions.

Other Activities

Honorable Sophia Mwakagenda had an opportunity to visit Ngorongoro Crater, which is an international tourist attraction in Ngorongoro district and talked with the leadership concerning their challenges in their day to day work.

Honorable Mwakagenda also visited her fellow MP Honorable Cecilia Pareso in Karatu district to console her on her brother’s death, which happened few days ago.

Reflections on the Visits

Honorable Mwakagenda and her team got a good reception from the leadership and citizenry in general.

The level of awareness of the people, particularly women, in attending, listening and participating to the Member of Parliament meetings was very high.

These visits give people hope: the visits show love and togetherness in society regardless of location, tribe, background, status, and colour.

Sewing in Kenya

Summer 2017 InStitch

Cherehani Africa provides sewing machines to women in rural Kenya to enable them to start and run their own independent tailoring businesses.  Lillian Onyango lives and works in Madiany market, Siaya County. Lillian has four children, three of whom go to school. Lillian learned dress-making skills at Ruma Training Institute in 2010 but has been unable to afford to purchase her own sewing machine to enable her to start her own tailoring business. For the last seven years Lilian has been leasing a sewing machine to enable her to generate income and provide for her children.

She pays a monthly leasing fee of $5, and this fee reduced her profits and chances of ever owning her own machine. When Cherehani Africa met Lilian and told her about our partnership with Sewing Peace that will enable her and many more women in rural Siaya to acquire sewing machines, she was overwhelmed with joy. For her, the sewing machine she has received from Sewing Peace is the first production tool she owns in her own name. Lilian made a down payment of $40 for the sewing machine and committed to completing the deficit of $20 in two months. Lilian no longer has to lease a sewing machine and is able to take home more money to support her family. Through the partnership of Cherehani Africa and Sewing Peace, Lillian no longer has to worry about leasing a tool she depends on for her survival. All her energy and savings are now directed at completing the payment for the sewing machine. “Thank you Sewing Peace for enabling me own a sewing machine. I will work very hard to ensure that you can extend your support to many more women like me in Kenya,” says Lilian.

Hello David,

The total cost for the machine is $60, which most beneficiaries pay off in six monthly installments of $10. All the machines that we received were in merchantable condition and we have not had to repair any before issuing. We broadly put the machines into two categories: those that could be converted to manual ($60) and those that are strictly electrical ($80). The ones that could be converted to manual have been widely issued as most beneficiaries work in stations without electricity. The electric ones have moved slower because they are more suitable for urban centers.

Best Regards,

Robert Mboya

Kyrgyzstan Sewing Update

Summer 2017 InStitch

Of the 30 sewing machines received, 23 have been repaired. These machines have greatly improved the lives of our beneficiaries, helping give low-income families in our region a way to earn valuable income for their families. Because many of our beneficiaries are single parents, our beneficiaries use them to run businesses out of their homes, allowing them to care for their children while working. In order to make our work sustainable, we are always looking for ways to support our beneficiaries in finding long-term solutions to issues that they are experiencing. Your donation of sewing machines has helped us do just that. Thanks for your support!

Family Narratives

“When we first applied for assistance from the Family Strengthening Project (FSP) my family was in a very difficult situation. Our family had practically no income, and we had extreme difficulty feeding our children. Thanks to FSP and their partnership with Sewing Peace, I had the opportunity to take sewing courses and receive state certification and started a sewing business with three other families in January 2017. Our business has received two sewing machines, and we are already taking orders and sewing products for an upcoming wedding.
We are very thankful for the generous donation life-changing support from Sewing Peace.”

“I am the mother of five children, and did not have enough income to care for them well. I have been an FSP beneficiary for a year, and they have provided me with necessary material and psychological support. But I was still in need of a job to provide long-term, steady income for my family. Because of the donation from Sewing Peace, I was given a sewing machine to start a business from my home. Already, I have received and fulfilled many orders using this machine.

Aside from providing work for me, this sewing machine has allowed me to sew necessary items for my family. Because of this donation, I am better able to care for my family. Thank you for your donation and for how you supported my family through a very difficult time.”

The Sewing Machine

Summer 2017 InStitch

Sewing may generally be described as an art whereby stitches and seams are used to join two or more fabrics together.  Depending on their creativity and imagination, seamstresses and tailors design and sew clothing so that people will look extremely beautiful in it when they wear it.

Since sewing machines seem expensive to young people from relatively needy families, they find it difficult to get one on their own when they want to engage or enroll into such a vocation or profession. Fortunately, this problem has been curbed in some areas in Ghana due to help from WEBike.

The machine is bought at a rather cheap price. This enables young people to learn the vocation and establish their own businesses easily, and then to train other people in that field and engage the employment of other younger generations who are interested in sewing and designing. This has helped to reduce marginally the unemployment rate.

A sewing job also keeps young and energetic people away from dangerous and sometimes criminal behavior. They prefer the vocation to such negative vices.

Economically, it has also helped them to take care of themselves and families as well, especially in the area of education from basic to tertiary.

We are so grateful to the WEBike organization for their help and support.

President’s Letter, Summer 2017

Dear Friends of P4P & SP,

Welcome to our first digital newsletter! With this format we can bring you much more information because we’re not constrained to a set number of pages. We will also save the significant cost of postage, which we can then use for our core mission of collecting and shipping income-generating potential around the world.

150,000 bikes shipped! That sure is a lot of opportunity for a heck of a lot of people, and let’s not forget the 3,700+ sewing machines we have distributed worldwide. We remain true to our original mission of proper recycling here in the U.S. for the benefit of motivated people worldwide who want a better life and are willing to work for it.

We should also give a shout out to our most amazing partners overseas, for it is those overseas partners who are responsible for the distribution. They are also responsible for finding and writing these incredible success stories that we bring you in our newsletters. We have always felt that it is important that we supply firsthand accurate stories to you the supporters of P4P so you can judge the effectiveness of our programs.

Now 26 years old, P4P has survived many turns up and down in the economy, but we have managed to stay in business because of your support. We have also managed to stay in business because of the incredible staff, some of whom right now as I write this on a Saturday in May, are standing out in the pouring rain processing bicycles. And next weekend they will be in a steel container packing those bicycles in 100º heat! P4P puts an incredible amount of sweat equity into every shipment. From Granby, Connecticut, to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and from Westchester, New York, down to Middletown, Delaware, our staff covers a very large domestic footprint on a shoestring budget. It is always hard physical work moving tons of bicycles but Gary always seems to do it with a smile.

I hope you enjoy both InGear and InStitch. These stories certainly inspire us to work a little harder pushing production higher so that we can offer opportunity to an increasing number of people every year.

Sincerely,

David Schweidenback

P4P Bike Number 150,000

Summer 2017 InGear

In April of 2017 Pedals for Progress collected and shipped its 150,000th bicycle.

Dave Schweidenback, our founder and president, tells the story of his initial goal in 1991: ship 12 bicycles to the region of his Peace Corps service in Ecuador. His initial estimate is short, so far, by a factor of 12,500.

Our Partners

P4P has shipped to 36 countries, from Albania to Vietnam. We’ve shipped 2 bikes to Papua New Guinea and 42,672 bikes to Nicaragua. We’ve made one shipment each to India, Jamaica, Kenya, Malawi, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Sri Lanka, and Venezuela. We’ve made 82 shipments to Nicaragua, 40 to El Salvador, 32 to Ghana, 19 to Guatemala, and 18 to Barbados. As of June, 2017, we’ve made 378 bicycle shipments and 24 independent sewing machine shipments.

Programs end because of changes in our partner organizations, import laws and fees, bureaucracy, and sometimes outright corruption. But most countries are eager for the programs we support—the economics make sense for our partners and the bikes clearly improve the lives of the people in their communities. We always have more demand than we can fill.

As of June, 2017, our active partners with both a bicycle program and a sewing program are Albania, Ghana, Guatemala, and Nicaragua. Our active partners with sewing programs only are Ethiopia, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Liberia, Tanzania, and Uganda.

Choosing partners is not an exact science. Groups from around the world find us in several different ways, including the internet, magazine articles and other publications, and word of mouth. P4P has a formal procedure that potential partners use to request a shipment. They make a proposal that gives us basic information about their location, size, history, and business plan. In some cases P4P can find a way to fund a first shipment, but our business model is that the partner must pay for shipping; that payment is more evidence of their good faith.

Some of our partners we know only at a distance. Other partners we have met personally, in the U.S. and in their home countries. We have seen their kids grow up and join P4P partner businesses. We have taken terrifying auto rides with insane drivers, hiked and biked through spectacular countryside, visited their bike shops and their business, educational, and health programs. We are continuously impressed by the generosity, resourcefulness, and hard work of our partners and their communities around the world.

Bike Number 1: 1991

For its first couple of years, P4P shipped bikes as part of shipments from other groups. We sent our very first bikes to Nicaragua, though to a partner we no longer have.

In 1992 we made our first shipment to Rivas, Nicaragua, where Wilfredo Santana had the business that became EcoBici, which is still our partner today. In 1993 P4P started filling its own containers, and Wilfredo and Dave worked out the revolving fund idea: P4P would pay for the collection of bikes in the U.S., our partner would pay shipping costs, and the partner would make enough profit selling the bikes to pay for the next shipment.

Bike Number 50,000: 2001

We can’t find any specific information about the 50,000th bike we shipped. Our records show that it must have been 2001. We shipped 20 containers that year, and we were nearing our peak production. In 2001 we shipped to South Africa, Honduras, Nicaragua, Barbados, Panama, El Salvador, Ecuador, and Ghana. Perhaps we were too busy collecting, prepping, and shipping bikes to notice the 50,000-bike milestone.

Let’s just pick one of our 2001 bikes and pretend that it is number 50,000. Here’s a typical happy story about how bikes improve lives: A note from Panama in our Fall 2001 InGear newsletter tells the story of seventeen-year-old Jose Luis Bethancourt, who was ready to drop out of school because of family finances. His commute to school by bus not only cost money, but took hours because of traffic, so Jose had no time for a job that would raise income for the family. He got his first-ever bike from P4P, which eliminated the bus fare and dramatically reduced his commute time. As a result, Jose had time for a job as well as for school.

Bike Number 100,000: 2006

We got our 100,000th bike at a collection sponsored by the Somerset Hills Kiwanis on June 24th, 2006, at the Sunset Inn in Clinton, New Jersey. Leonard Lance, then a New Jersey State Senator, was on hand to thank the surprised donor. Now in 2017 Leonard Lance is the U.S. Congressional Representative of the New Jersey 7th District. So P4P can improve the lives of U.S. politicians as well as people in our partner countries!

We shipped the 100,000th bike to FIDESMA in Guatemala, one of our most long-standing partners. P4P’s Reykha Bonilla followed the bike to Guatemala, met our good friends and partners at FIDESMA, and met the owner of P4P bike 100,000, Mateo Patzan, a working father of 5 and amateur bike racer. The Fall 2006 InGear newsletter has the whole story of bike number 100,000.

Bike Number 150,000: 2017

Fast forward to 2017. On April 1, the Long Island Returned Peace Corps Volunteers collected P4P bike number 150,000. On April 22 we loaded the bike into a container bound for FIDESMA, the same destination as bike number 100,000. At midday, June 6th, the bike arrived at FIDESMA in San Andrés Itzapa, Guatemala. It’s fitting that these are the groups that collected and received our 150,000th bike.

The Long Island RPCVs have been one of our most successful collection partners. They rotate collections around Long Island to maximize their reach. Their first P4P collection was in 2003, their second in 2005, and they’ve held collections every year since. The Long Island RPCVs are featured in this article from Summer 2011.

We’ve already mentioned FIDESMA, our Guatemala partner, because they got our 100,000th bike in 2006. FIDESMA has been our partner since 1999. We are good friends as well as professional partners with the principals. For example, the summer 2012 InGear newsletter has this article about a visit to New Jersey from Señora Maria Margarita Caté de Catú, founder of FIDESMA.

What’s Next

In 2016 P4P had the first uptick in bicycle collections since 2001. Let’s hope bike collections continue to improve.

Even though we are celebrating a bicycle milestone, we should mention sewing machines. Since 1999, P4P has shipped sewing machines along with bikes. Like bikes, sewing machines give people a way to improve their economic circumstances. A sewing machine can be a job in a box. In 2015 we created the Sewing Peace brand as an option for carrying on our sewing machine activities separately from our bicycle activities. If only sewing machines are involved, we have multiple advantages: with collections, with shipping, and with partnering. For collections, we can target groups more likely to have sewing machines to donate. For shipping, we can send much smaller loads, loads that do not take a full container, and so are much cheaper to ship. And for partnering, we can find groups abroad that may not have the capacity or expertise to deal with 500 bikes at a time, or that may not even have a bicycle program.

So we are now the same single organization, but doing business both as Pedals for Progress and as Sewing Peace. It’s been a rewarding 26 years. We look forward to many more.

Nicaragua Success Story, 2017

Summer 2017 InGear

Alexander Mora was born in Tola, Nicaragua, eight miles west of the town of Rivas, home of our P4P partner EcoBici.

Alexander has been interested in bikes since he was 10. From a very young age he learned bike repair from Guadalupe, the former lead mechanic at the Ensembladora de Bicicletas, the EcoBici bike shop. Guadalupe taught Alexander everything about repair and maintenance of bicycles: lubrication, wheel alignment, cable replacement, …

When Alexander got his first 20-inch bike he became even more interested in bike repair.

When he was 23 an Atlas bicycle came into the shop from a Señor Miguel Ríos. Señor Rios used to deliver newspapers in Rivas on his Atlas. Señor Ríos passed away but his son gave the Atlas to Alexander. Alexander still has this bike.

After he got the Atlas, Alexander would ride it from Rivas to Tola. From Tola he would ride another five miles to the village of Gasper García to repair taxi trikes. Overall, Alexander maintains about 100 of these bike taxis.

After work he would ride a few more miles to the Pacific coast for fish and whatever else he could find. To survive he would carry a machete, a liter container of water, and a pump and patches for tire-repair.

In 2011, Alexander met Joaquino Bando and they met Carlos Santana at EcoBici. They began to assemble beach cruiser bikes.

Alexander seemed different from other workers. He worked closely with Carlos. Then when head mechanic Don Lorenzo retired, Alexander joined the EcoBici permanent staff, earning a fixed salary. He works on new and used bikes, and has become one of the best bike mechanics in the country.

Alexander now restores badly damaged used bikes, making them almost like new. Besides the Atlas, he has restored a classic 24-inch bike that he uses to run errands for EcoBici: making bank deposits or doing anything else we need him to do. Alexander has great skill as a bike mechanic and has been an excellent addition to the staff at EcoBici.

The Vendor

Summer 2017 InGear

Kwame is a young man around 22 years old and a student at Cape Coast Polytechnic in Ghana. Kwame is into the business of selling Phone Cards at wholesale prices. He does this when he has no lectures to attend. Considering the tough nature of this business, he sells them by either hiring a car or walking. This mode of selling makes the work somehow cumbersome and tedious.

Fortunately for Kwame, he came into contact with WEBike and he purchased one of the bikes at an affordable price. He uses the bicycle for his phone-card business and sometimes to go to lectures as well because he is a non-resident student. The use of the bicycle has made his business very efficient and his customer base has increased. This is how he is able to buy more books and other personal needs. Kwame also loves to use the bicycle because of the exercise he gets riding between the campus and town.

The Significance of the Bicycle to the Rural Teacher

Summer 2017 InGear

The teacher, as would be widely agreed, plays an invigorating role in the nurture of a human being. It is for this reason that teachers ought to be given apt remuneration and motivation for their services.

Teachers in rural areas like the Northern Region of Ghana have particular needs, and bicycles play a vital role in their lives.

A teacher who teaches up north and does not possess a bicycle is like a farmer going to the farm without a machete. Not to make a storm in a tea cup, but anyone who has lived in the rural northern part of Ghana could attest to the fact that living there can be very cumbersome.

In some places a teacher can get to school on time only by commercial bus. But in some areas the bus operates only once a day. Having a bicycle is a much more reliable means of transportation.

The bicycle is therefore invaluable in the life of the rural teacher.

Adongo the Bicycle Mechanic

Summer 2017 InGear

Adongo is a young energetic man who resides in the Northern Region of Ghana.

Life after secondary school was very vexatious. There were not enough funds for Adongo to continue school. Since time obviously waits for no man, he decided to use his time profitably. After much deliberation, he finally resolved to learn a trade.

Consequentially, he moved to the capital of the country, Accra, where he learned carpentry. Along the line, Adongo realized carpentry was not in his best interest. He resolved to find something else to do on the side; he met this man who was into bicycle repairs. Adongo then thought it wise to align himself with the bicycle repairer.

About a year and a half into bicycle repairs, he became a proficient bicycle mechanic. He handled both major and minor repairs with utmost case.

Adongo later decided to change his domicile. He went back to his roots.

He is now a big-time bicycle mechanic, with about five apprentices. He buys bicycles and gives those that are not in very good shape a decent overhaul.

Adongo is now a competent bike mechanic cum sales executive. He is able to cater for his family and other needs. Through this business has he put up a three-bedroom house in his home town. He is living comfortably with his wife and two children.

All thanks go to WEBike.

March 13, 2015

Floods, storms, droughts, wild weather fluctuations and the associated economic destabilisation plague the world. Polar ice shields are melting and the sea is rising. Severe heat waves, freshwater exhaustion, local air pollution and the dramatic loss of biodiversity are reaching alarming levels.
Current policies on the burning of coal, oil and gas are making it harder and harder to reach the international goal of limiting global warming to 2°C above pre-industrial levels, let alone the 1.5°C target called for by the least developed countries and small island states, whose very survival is threatened by climate change.

Economic policies in nearly all countries are increasing, not reducing CO2 emissions – the main culprit behind global warming. Fighting climate change and achieving economic growth are too often regarded as an either-or choice.

At the Paris climate summit in December 2015, 194 countries will meet to adopt a new climate change agreement. Countries are being asked to come forward with their own ambitions and plans for curbing carbon emissions.

Pricing carbon is the most cost-effective way to reduce emissions and at the same time to catalyse the economic paradigm shift the world needs to survive. The carbon price stimulates clean technology and market innovation, boosting new, low-carbon drivers of sustainable economies.

Taxing carbon emissions creates the incentives to encourage decision-makers at all levels of society to reduce CO2 through less use of fossil fuels, more renewable energy, and increased energy savings.

The carbon tax could start relatively low to ease in the transition (e.g. $5/t CO2) and be ramped up annually (e.g. $1/t CO2) to maximise effectiveness.

Carbon taxes have major advantages over CO2 trading schemes. They are easy to administer,can be made predictable and are less vulnerable to cheating and loopholes.

Revenues should partially be used to finance the international Green Climate Fund to help developing countries mitigate and adapt to climate change and maintain healthy ecosystems. We, winners of the world’s environmental prizes attending the 4th International Convention of Environmental Laureates, call on governments to introduce a tax on CO2 emissions and to phase out fossil-fuel and nuclear subsidies to help put humankind on track to avert catastrophic climate change.

EEF version of this document (PDF)