Who We Benefit

Bikes for the World donates all bicycles and related material received to selected non-profit agencies in Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, and just about anywhere they are needed and delivery is feasible.  These bicycles provide affordable transport to individuals for use in getting to work and school, or to in providing health and education services to low-income rural people.

During 2005, BfW provided 5,601 bicycles to projects in seven developing countries and the United States.  Partnerships during the year included:

• The Bicycling Empowerment Network Namibia - Started with the aim of distributing affordable second hand bikes from Western charities to is advantaged people in Namibia, Southwest Africa, in order to improve access to employment, education, healthcare and social opportunities. For a brochure with more information about BEN of Namibia click here for a PDF brochure (Adobe Acrobat reader required)
  
• Sri Lanka Association of Greater Washington (www.slagw.org)  – Sri Lanka post-tsunami economic reactivation working ecumenically with local Catholic, Muslim, and Buddhist networks (three shipments totaling 1,359 bicycles, including a container of 400 bicycles from the Chicago area in cooperation with Working Bikes Cooperative and the Brunswick Corporation).
  
• Art for Humanity (www.artforhumanity.org ) – 57 bicycles for microenterprise and small farm development in Honduras.
  
• Servicios Ecuménicos de Formación de Centro América (SEFCA) – Guatemala urban microenterprise development.
  
• Fundación Integral Campesina de Costa Rica (FINCA Costa Rica) (www.fic.or.cr)  – Costa Rican rural micro enterprise development (two shipments totaling 879 bikes) – see story elsewhere on this website of Marco Vinicio, street peddler and Bikes for the World beneficiary.
  
• Christian Action for International Development(CAID) (www.caidinc.org) – community development program working in the north coast community of Ft. Liberté, Haiti to raise local standards of living through the low-cost sale of consumer and production items, and provision of skills training.
  
• Village Bike Project – West African microenterprise development. VBF (www.ibike/vbp ) provides training, tools, and bikes, principally in Ghana.  439 bicycles shipped August 2005, with plans to ship another container in early 2006.
  
• Pinelands Creative Workshop – community development program providing area youth with micro enterprise credit, skills training, and performing arts opportunities (448 bicycles delivered June 2005).

Bikes for the World also donated bicycles in small numbers in the United States.  Recipients included:

• Project Hope and Harmony, Herndon, Virginia – 15 bicycles for day laborers needing affordable transportation to and from work.
  
• The father of a US soldier wounded in Iraq, currently receiving rehabilitation at Washington DC’s Walter Reed Hospital—the father needed local transportation and a recreational outlet while providing care for his son.
  
• A Hurricane Katrina evacuee newly resident in Washington DC, who needed transportation to work.

Under sponsorship of another US-based bicycle collection & distribution program, the network now comprising Bikes for the World delivered more than 28,000 bikes over the period 1995-2004 to organizations in Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Barbados, Eritrea, Ghana, South Africa, and Uganda.

During 2006, Bikes for the World expects to ship to several new projects, including a Rotary International partnership providing bicycles to teachers and students in the Gambia, and providing transport to micro entrepreneurs, health workers, and teachers, in partnership with Bicycle Empowerment Network – Namibia (www.benbikes.org.za/namibia).