1, 000 bikes for girls’ education and young women’s leadership in Malawi

As part of my bicycles-for-girls-education PhD, I am always on the look out for inspiring projects where bicycles create change. This week, I came across a join venture between CAMFED and The Clara Lionel Foundation from a few years ago. Enjoy! NG.

1, 000 bikes for girls' education and young women's leadership in Malawi. Bicycles Create Change.com 8th January 2023
Image: CAMFED

CAMFED and The Clara Lionel Foundation delivered over 1,000 bicycles to girls and young women in the Salima District of Malawi.

These bicycles are part of a comprehensive aid program offered to high school students, with the potential to revolutionize the opportunities for girls who confront up to 10km (6 miles) commutes to and from school.

The success and longevity of this initiative will depend on the CAMFED Association (CAMA) network, as they acquire proficiency in entrepreneurship, bike upkeep, and repair skills.

The collaboration between CAMFED and the Clara Lionel Foundation is facilitating the continuation of secondary education for 7,500 Malawian girls, a crucial effort considering the low 30% enrollment rate of females in secondary school due to insufficient facilities and long distances.

These bicycles has generated a lot of attention in rural communities where girls often face challenges commuting to school, such as exhaustion and hunger from walking and attending to household duties. The bicycles provide a pathway for academic success in rural areas.

This programme is part of a wider and multifaceted strategy to remove obstacles to girls’ education, which also includes paying for school fees, peer mentoring, supplying necessities like sanitary pads, and bridging huge distances from home to school.

The Malawian alumni of CAMFED programmes are essential to bringing about change for the next generation of females. CAMA members serve as mentors and role models in rural areas where there are few female teachers and professionals. So far alumni have helped 20,000 females pursue education in just five years.

See more on this project here.

1, 000 bikes for girls' education and young women's leadership in Malawi. Bicycles Create Change.com 8th January 2023
image: CAMFED

THE CLARA LIONEL FOUNDATION

The Clara Lionel Foundation is a non-governmental organization founded by the singer and entrepreneur Rihanna in 2012. The foundation aims to support and fund education, health, and emergency response programs around the world. It prioritizes initiatives that promote education and provide access to healthcare in impoverished communities, particularly for girls and women. The foundation also works towards disaster relief and climate change resilience. The foundation partners with local organizations to achieve its goals and has provided significant support to countries in the Caribbean, Africa, and the United States.

CAMFED

CAMFED (Campaign for Female Education) is a non-governmental organization that aims to eradicate poverty and improve the educational opportunities of girls in sub-Saharan Africa by supporting them through primary and secondary school and into adulthood. The organization provides assistance with school fees, mentorship, and life skills training to ensure that girls are able to complete their education and become confident and economically independent leaders in their communities. Since its founding in 1993, CAMFED has helped over 4 million students in Zimbabwe, Zambia, Ghana, Tanzania, and Malawi.

Myanmar: Less Walk – Excess global bike share surplus get kids to school

Myanmar: Walk Less - Excess global bike share surplus get kids to school.  Bicycles Create Change.com. 17th May 2021.

An inspiring good news story from Myanmar where bicycles really are creating more positive social and environmental change!

Recently, I came across an article written by Phoe Wah in The Myanmar Times detailing a local tech entrepreneur’s social enterprise which uses global bike-sharing surplus to get more rural Myanmar kids to school.

Fantastic!

For more: see the Less Walk website for more and the Less Walk YouTube channel here.

Here is an overview of that the project below*.

Like many young students across Myanmar, Saw, Suu Lel had to walk for miles to reach school from his small Kayin village. Every morning he would wake at 5 am to make it to his morning class, and would only return at dusk after walking for another hour to get home. The long commute was an added source of stress for the young scholar as it took time away from his homework. Coming from a poor family, Saw, Suu Lel also wished to help his parents but the distance is too great to reach their workplace by foot. However, Saw, Suu Lel tedious routine or changed overnight. Like the other students in the village, he received a brand-new bicycle.

“I’m really happy about having an Obike (a former model of the bike-sharing company). I’ve never owned one“ said the seventh grader.

Since the day the bikes arrived, the morning streets in the village look very different. A line of yellow bikes, written by delighted students, makes its way through the main streets towards the school.

Mike Than Tun, the founder of the Myanmar technology company BOD Tech Venture is behind this goodwill gesture. Aside from investing in tech projects around the country, the 33-year-old businessman doubles as a philanthropist. His main area of interest is education.

Myanmar: Walk Less - Excess global bike share surplus get kids to school. Bicycles Create Change.com. 17th May 2021.

“Education is the best way to alleviate poverty” is Mike Than Tun’s mantra. The bikes are aimed at giving school children a more efficient and fun way to get to school. According to Mike, many students drop out of school because when they move to middle and high school the schools are very far away from the villages with some walking up to 2 hours in the early morning. When it rains, walking times can be extended even further.

“Less walking will help the student save 80% of their travel time. We believe having Bikes will improve absenteeism and overall lateness giving more time for students to study and allow them to focus in class. It’s also safer for female students as I can reach home before dark,” said Mike Than Tun.

Having lived for nearly 18 years in Singapore, Mike Than Tun realized the extent of the problem during his travels to rural Myanmar. On his travels across the countryside, he remembered seeing lines of young students walking long distances to school. He realized that many families could not afford a bicycle and seeing a school bus was a rarity.

Myanmar imports large quantities of used bicycles from Thailand and Japan which can provide much-needed form of cheap transportation for some people. Despite the secondhand imports, many families still can’t afford a used bicycle.

Myanmar: Walk Less - Excess global bike share surplus get kids to school. Bicycles Create Change.com. 17th May 2021.

His idea first took shape in 2018 when the Chinese bike-sharing provider Obike announce bankruptcy and their companies Ofo and Mobike withdrew from the Southeast Asia market. This left plenty of spare bicycles abandoned, available for scrap dealers or recycling plants.

“It is extremely heartbreaking to see the amount of money and resources wasted white sharing companies that all ended up at scrap. A new bicycle is estimated to cost between USD$ 150-200 to manufacture now all ends up as a huge social and public nuisance. It’s sad that rich nations might not know how to treasure such a simple necessity. But for people in need, it can make a huge impact and even be life-changing,” said Tun.

Through his initiative Less Walk.com, the philanthropist buys and imports the obsolete bike-sharing bicycles into Myanmar at a fraction of the original cost and distributes them for free to students living below the poverty line. Students who benefit the most typically walk over two kilometres a day and are enrolled in grade 6 – 10. Since last June, the Less Walk project has already imported 10,000 brand-new Obikes.

“We will modify the bicycles to add a seat in the back so that siblings can ride to school. We will also remove the digital lock and replace it with a regular lock for the students” Mike added.

So far, Mike’s charity has already helped students in Sagaing, Yangong, Mon and Thanithariyi regions and the founder intends to cover other places in Myanmar in the future. Words of his good deeds have travelled as far as America, Netherlands, Japan and China where people started to donate bikes to his project.

Mike hopes to expand the program from 10,000 bikes to 100,000 bikes in two years.

“We want to raise awareness that the circular economy is possible and one man’s problems can be another man’s opportunity” he said.

Myanmar: Walk Less - Excess global bike share surplus get kids to school. Bicycles Create Change.com. 17th May 2021.

*Main content and all images sourced from Phoe Wah’s article and Less Walk. Some content is edited.

Grace Foundation Gambia

Recently, Nelson Aigbe, (the Founder/Director of Grace Foundation, Gambia) got in contact with me. He had seen news of my research in Sierra Leone and he reached out to share the important work he is doing feeding and educating street kids. I wanted to do a post for Grace Foundation to support their incredible work, spread the work and give readers the opportunity to donate and help Grace Foundation continue their work. In a time when many of us are house-bound and the world seems to have shrunk, it is even more important to keep our eyes and hearts open to needs of others. This post is written by Nelson and outlines what Grace Foundation is and how they help local street kids. Please give generously. Thanks, NG.

Grace Foundation Gambia. Bicycles Create Change.com 21st October 2020.
Lunchtime

Grace Foundation Gambia

Grace Foundation is a registered nonprofit organization in the Gambia that provides education and food for 400 street kids.. Many Gambian children turn up at schools daily on hungry stomach and return home hungry.

Their families are living in extreme poverty and do not have enough income to provide the barest minimum of food.

As a result of the poverty faced daily by these children, many are withdrawn from schools and are forced to engage in street trading in order to get food for their families at home, thus exposing these mainly children girl to sex abuse, child trafficking and child labour.

Grace Foundation provides free school meals and education to 400 kids, most of them are girl s as a way to help stop sex abuse, encourage school attendance and stop hunger at schools.

A message from the Founder/Director

I write to you on behalf of Grace Foundation Gambia.

Grace Foundation provides free school meals and education to mainly girl street children sent to trade in the streets in order to help feed at home thus exposing these mainly girl street children to sex abuse, child trafficking and child labour.

Since the closure of schools these children can no longer assess the free school meals programme we provide daily, and most of these children are back in the streets, trading and hawking in order to be fed at home.

This street trading has once again exposed these mainly girl children to sex abuse, child trafficking and labour.

I pray for your attention in helping me with the continuation of the feeding and probably education of these very vulnerable poor Children.

My organization is a small one that depends on the magnanimous donations of good people like you to help keep these children safe from the streets.

Please feel free to ask any questions that may be useful to you.

Kind regards,

Nelson Aigbe – Founder/Director, Grace Foundation, The Gambia

Grace Foundation Gambia. Bicycles Create Change.com 21st October 2020.
Lunch at Grace Foundation

You can make a difference

Your contributions can help educate a child because your
$15 will buy stationery for a child
$25 will provide school bag for a child

$50 will provide Uniforms
$100 will provide lunch for 2000 pupils

$150 will provide seedlings for school gardens
$700 will buy 2000 acres of land

Support Grace Foundation

To support kindly send donations to: Trust Bank Limited (Gambia)
Account Name: Grace Foundation (GF) Account Number: 110-243272-01
Swift Code: TBLTGMGM

For further inquiries please contact: gracefoundation.gm@gmail.com

Telephone: (00220) 994 88 46 998 18 60

LinkedIn: Grace Foundation GF Gambia

Facebook: https://fb.me/GraceFoundation1968

Twitter: @GraceFoundatio7

Grace Foundation Gambia. Bicycles Create Change.com 21st October 2020.
Image: Nelson Aigbe with staff of Wolverhampton College during the school painting of St Peter’s Nursery school.

Grace Foundation Gambia. Bicycles Create Change.com 21st October 2020.
Class time

All images courtesy of Grace Foundation Gambia.

Nourishing Young Minds and Bodies in Lunsar

This post is a shout out to the community I did my bike PhD fieldwork with – and a call to action to help them when they need it most.

Regular readers of this blog know that earlier this year I went to Sierra Leone, West African to do my fieldwork. My research partners with bicycle NGO Village Bicycle Project and I worked alongside Karim ‘Stylish’ Kamara (VBP Country Manager).

I returned a week before COVID lock down and quarantine was made mandatory (phew!!). Since then I have kept in close contact with Stylish and many of the amazing people I met in Lunsar.

Since my return, I have been worried about Stylish and my Lunsar friends – dreading the arrival of August because of that is when the seasonal torrential rains come.

As well as being an incredible bicycle advocate and business man, Stylish is also very active supporting his community in a number of roles and ventures. Some of these ventures are bicycle-related, others are not.

Stylish’s VBP bike shop supplies COVID precautions for all riders, customers, visitors and staff.

This post looks at one of Stylish’s most significant community program that occurs outside of his role as ‘The bike king of Sierra Leone’ – yet one that is arguably just as important – his annual August Nourishing Young Minds and Bodies in Lunsar.

August is the most difficult month in Sierra Leone

The rainy season in Sierra Leone runs June – September. August is always the most difficult month. Every August, there are devastating rains, storms, flooding and landslides and thousands of the most vulnerable lose their homes, crops, livelihoods and sometimes lives. Schools, markets and health services shut down and people are forced to stay home because it is too dangerous – people and children get swept away and killed. 

Last year, there was a particularly devastating mudslide in Freetown that killed many living in shanty towns and locals called it ‘the day the mountain moved’. These communities are still rebuilding even now as the rains come. The video below showing the build-up last year gives a sense of the gravity of the situation.

August rains often constrain access to essential services due to flooded streets and bridges, debris blocking roads and poor communication networks. A lack of electricity means the full impact on the most vulnerable families is not known until much later. This year preparations are more acute given additional COVID lockdown.

Every August many schools in Lunsar shut down. This means kids are missing out on continuing their education and often they fall behind.

In an account on Study, Read , Write, but most importantly: Listen, traveller Zoe details her experience being in the rainy season in Sierra Leone. Her experience highlights the impact torrential rains have on locals and slum communities, especially in regards to sewage, electricity and health via spikes in malaria and other diarrhoeal and vector borne diseases.

Nourishing Young Minds and Bodies in Lunsar

Stylish with participants of the 2019 Nourishing Young Minds and Bodies.

Last August, Hellen Gelbrand set up a Go Fund Me: Nourishing Young Minds and Bodies to help Stylish run a month-long feeding and schooling program for 100 local kids. This meant kids got a meal for lunch (for most it was their only meal of the day) and were able to continue their studies.

Hellen writes ‘August is the hardest month in Sierra Leone, well into the rainy season with dwindling food supplies in subsistence farming communities. It’s especially hard on kids. In what has become an annual program, Karim Kamara, a young Sierra Leonean, is planning a month of extra schooling and nutritious meals for 125 students at the King Kama primary school in Lunsar. Five teachers, including head teacher Mr. Alie F. Kamara (no relation to Karim), will be employed to teach the children—many of whom are orphans, and all from poor families where one meal a day is the norm for August.”

The 2020 Nourishing Young Minds and Bodies program starts this week and needs your help to raise $3, 100 to make this program happen.

This program is a remarkable example of a grassroots community-driven initiative made possible by Stylish – a person whose first love is bicycles, but who saw a need and took action to make positive change for those who need it the most in his community.

Husband and I have supported this program and we are rallying others to do the same.

Please give generously and support Stylish and the children of Lunsar.

2020 Nourishing Young Minds and Bodies students.

New Materialism SIG: My bicycles-for-education PhD fieldwork presentation

Note: the first 2020 NM SIG gathering was held before COVID-19 social distancing and workplace lockdown came into effect – hence us meeting in person.

New Materialism SIG: My bicycles-for-education PhD fieldwork presentation. Bicycles Create Change.com 1st April 2020.
Nina riding during fieldwork in Sierra Leone

As many of you know, I am the co-convenor of a New Materialism Special Interest Group (SIG) at Griffith’s Institute for Educational Research (GIER). Each month a group of HDR candidates, Early Career Researchers and Academics meet to explore, discuss, experiment and share complex and emerging post-qualitative ideas, methods and approaches.

New Materialism is the framing I am using for my African girls’ bicycles-for-education PhD Project. To kick off the first SIG for 2020, I presented my African fieldwork.

I’ve had a few people contact me asking how the trip went. Below is a snapshot of my bicycle PhD project, the context and what I did during my PhD fieldwork in Lunsar, Sierra Leone.

Here’s some highlights of my fieldwork presentation (more details in slides below).

  • Opening: An Acknowledgement of Country, Diversity and Inclusion and that Matter Matters and thanks to the local Lunsar chiefs and the amazing people who have been instrumental in helping make this project happen.
  • Researcher positionality: Who am I and how did I come to this project
  • Research context background : 5 intersections of Girls unfreedoms
  • Girls Ed Lit Review: Current directions in NGO Literature on the topic
  • Establish Space: Key Project that opens up my research space – completed in 2010
  • Confirm & Extend: Follow up – a specific project on girls bicycle projects in Lunsar – completed 2016
  • Established gap leads into my research questions (no slide for this = top secret!)
  • My Study Design: Aims, Methodology and theoretical framing (NM)
  • Fieldwork details: Tech Matters and other research developments/considerations
  • Country context: Background to Sierra Leone (very general history & context)
  • Site Location: Background and context about Lunsar (my fieldwork location)
  • Research partnership case study: Intro to Village Bicycle Project (organization) Stylish (host/research participant/all-round incredible man!)
  • Fieldwork ‘Data’: list of all the research data/activities achieved (so busy!) and other events, opportunities and visits – so busy!
  • Present some ‘Data‘: I showed some fieldwork bike ride footage for discussion (no slide – top secret)
  • The return: Now I have returned, I outlined my next steps and questioned how/what to do to start ‘data analysis’
  • Q&A: Open discussion and suggestions on entry points for data analysis using NM approaches.

Aside from being able to share my fieldwork experiences with others, it was also great to get stuck into some rigorous academic discussions and come away with a number of productive and tangible ideas to apply for data analysis.

Most satisfying of all though, was seeing how interested people are in Sierra Leone and having the opportunity to promote and celebrate the beautiful people, places and experiences I had there.

New Materialism SIG: My bicycles-for-education PhD fieldwork presentation. Bicycles Create Change.com 1st April 2020.
Researcher positionality: Who am I and how did I come to this project
New Materialism SIG: My bicycles-for-education PhD fieldwork presentation. Bicycles Create Change.com 1st April 2020.
Research context background : 5 intersections of Girls unfreedoms
New Materialism SIG: My bicycles-for-education PhD fieldwork presentation. Bicycles Create Change.com 1st April 2020.
Girls Ed Lit Review: Current directions in NGO Literature on the topic
New Materialism SIG: My bicycles-for-education PhD fieldwork presentation. Bicycles Create Change.com 1st April 2020.
Establish Space: The Child Mobility Project – Key project that opens my research space. Completed 2010
New Materialism SIG: My bicycles-for-education PhD fieldwork presentation. Bicycles Create Change.com 1st April 2020.
Confirm & Extend: Lauren’s Hof follow up: a specific project on girls bicycle projects in Lunsar. Completed 2016
New Materialism SIG: My bicycles-for-education PhD fieldwork presentation. Bicycles Create Change.com 1st April 2020.
My Study Design: Methodology
New Materialism SIG: My bicycles-for-education PhD fieldwork presentation. Bicycles Create Change.com 1st April 2020.
Fieldwork details: Tech Matters
New Materialism SIG: My bicycles-for-education PhD fieldwork presentation. Bicycles Create Change.com 1st April 2020.
Fieldwork details: Other research developments/considerations
New Materialism SIG: My bicycles-for-education PhD fieldwork presentation. Bicycles Create Change.com 1st April 2020.
Country context: Background to Sierra Leone (very general history & context)
New Materialism SIG: My bicycles-for-education PhD fieldwork presentation. Bicycles Create Change.com 1st April 2020.
Site Location: Background and context about Lunsar (my fieldwork location)
New Materialism SIG: My bicycles-for-education PhD fieldwork presentation. Bicycles Create Change.com 1st April 2020.
Research partnership case study: Intro to Village Bicycle Project (organization) and Stylish (host/research participant/all-round incredible person!)
New Materialism SIG: My bicycles-for-education PhD fieldwork presentation. Bicycles Create Change.com 1st April 2020.
Fieldwork ‘Data’: list of all the research data/activities achieved (so busy!) and other events, opportunities and visits – so busy!
New Materialism SIG: My bicycles-for-education PhD fieldwork presentation. Bicycles Create Change.com 1st April 2020.
The return: Now I have returned, I outlined my next steps and questioned how/what to do to start ‘data analysis. Q&A: Open discussion and suggestions on entry points for data analysis using NM approaches
New Materialism SIG: My bicycles-for-education PhD fieldwork presentation. Bicycles Create Change.com 1st April 2020.
To close poem: World Bicycle Relief

Bikes help break the poverty cycle

For this blog post, we are looking at how bicycles are being integrated into two programs run by Australian-based INGO Global Hand Charity.

Global Hands Charity

Global Hand Charity (GHC) is an Australian international NGO founded in 2008 that works to improve educational opportunities for children in remote communities in Laos, Sri Lanka, Vietnam and now Cambodia.

During their initial programs, GHC quickly realised that before children could learn, basic needs like access to drinking water and toilets or WASH (Water and Sanitation and Hygiene) needed to be addressed. So before working on education, they built wells, toilets and showers near the schools before introducing learning interventions.

GHC have a strong supporter base and links to a number of Australian universities (like Curtin University). 100% of all money raised by GHC go directly to people in need. They are completely volunteer-run and do not take any money for administrations costs. Their running costs are supported by government grants.

Two of Global Hands Charity projects involve bicycles. First, GHC’s Education program Bicycles Program: Bicycles break poverty program has provided bicycles to remote communities to help local Laotian children access schooling. Second, Trade school: building a sustainable future is a bicycle repair and trade skill workshop space to upskill children with diff-abilities (deaf and mute).

Bikes help break the poverty cycle. Bicycles Create Change.com 30th Nov 2019.
Schoolgirls in Laos

Bicycles Program: Bicycles break poverty program

In remote villages where schools are scarce, many kids walk on average 4 hours a day to attend school. Some travel up to 8 hours return. With a bike, these same children can ride the 10-15 km to get to their local Secondary School in less time, more safely and still have the energy to learn.

Currently in Laos, only 50% of students attend secondary school because they are usually further away. Most primary schools are located in villages, so the travel is less and attendance is usually about 85%. The transition from primary to secondary school is a critical aspect of continuing education – and bikes are a way to address this issue.

To test the program, initially 50 bikes were donated by GHC as well as another 50 bikes going to Sister Catherine’s Trade School (Laos). Since then, the program has expanded and more bikes have been distributed.

Bikes help break the poverty cycle. Bicycles Create Change.com 30th Nov 2019.
Image: Global Hands Charity

Trade school: building a sustainable future

GHC has built a bike and carpentry shed at the Disabled Children’s School for Deaf and Mute in Luang Prabang (Laos). The Shed is a place for students to learn how to repair and service bicycles donated through GHC’s Bike Program. This program is specifically for the deaf-mute boys at the school.

So far over 100 bikes have been purchased to enable children in remote villages to attend secondary school up to 20 km away. Working alongside the Bicycle Program, students who extend skills in bike repairs and carpentry skills as a way to build skills for future employment opportunities.

Another Trade School project taught girls commercial cooking, hospitality, hair and beauty skills to reduce the risk of girls crossing the border into Thailand and ending up in sex work on living on the street.

Bikes help break the poverty cycle. Bicycles Create Change.com 30th Nov 2019.
Image: Global Hand Charity

GHC Core Programs

Global Hand Charity has 4 core programs: Education, Schools & Buildings, Healthcare and Community. Here is an overview of some of their initiatives:

Education

  • Textbooks: Books for education (Laos)
  • Professional Learning: Teacher Education (Vietnam)
  • Bicycles Program: Bicycles break poverty Program (Laos)

Schools & Buildings

  • Dormitories: A Safe place for girls to realise dreams (Vietnam)
  • Community Centres: Community hubs for families (Laos)
  • Trade School: Building a sustainable future (Laos)

Healthcare

  • Deaf & Mute Orphanage: Hearing for the first time (Laos)
  • Mobile Eye Care Camps: Seeing a way out of poverty (Laos, Sri Lanka)
  • Medical Visits & Funding: Making lives easier (Laos)

Community

  • Clean Water: Tippy Tap saves lives (Universal)
  • Girls Hygiene Project: Laos girl power (Laos)
  • Hygiene Bags: Hoikor Bags (Laos)
Bikes help break the poverty cycle. Bicycles Create Change.com 30th Nov 2019.
Image: Global Hand Charity

Helping others

Global Hands Charity is committed to making positive change for rural kids in Laos and Sri Lanka which are among some of the poorest countries in the world.

In these rural villages, there are no doctors or hospitals and children stop going to school because it is too far and too difficult to walk.

GHC is providing community nurses and running free medical clinics in rural community centers, building schools, learning centers, dormitories and providing bicycles so kids can access education. They also provide specialist educational and medical programs, such as vision and hearing initiatives, that are not available in many parts of South East Asia.

Organisations such as Global Hands Charity can help improve education, employment and health opportunities for locals living in remote areas– and it is great to see bicycles playing an important part in these projects.

Bikes help break the poverty cycle. Bicycles Create Change.com 30th Nov 2019.
Image: Global Hand Charity

Global Childhood Juxtapositions: World Children’s Day 2019

Global Childhood Juxtapositions:  World Children’s Day 2019.  Bicycles Create Change.com 22nd Nov 2019.
Rohingya refugee childrens waiting for food at Hakimpara refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar. With children making up around 60 percent of the Rohingya that have fled into Bangladesh, many below 18 years old arrived into the makeshift tents highly traumatized after seeing family members killed and homes set on fire. Image: @ugurgallen. Photo: K.M. Asad @kmasad

Regular readers of this blog know that my PhD research explores how bicycles feature in rural African girls’ access to education. This means mobility, education, in/equity, gender justice and children’s rights are central to much of the work I do. They are also reoccurring themes for this blog. I regularly post articles that showcase how bicycles create more positive social, environmental and educational change for all – and in many cases for children specifically.

A few previous BCC posts that feature bikes and kids are:

November 20th is the World Children’s Day.

This year, I wanted to acknowledge this date in a different way.

Instead of sharing a project where children benefit from bikes, I wanted to highlight the juxtapositions of cultural experiences of children around the world.

Global Childhood Juxtapositions: World Children’s Day 2019. Bicycles Create Change.com 22nd Nov 2019.
In this photograph taken on April 28, 2018, Afghan children work at a coal yard on the outskirts of Jalalabad. Image: @ugurgallen. Photo: @noorulah_shirzada

Expand your cultural competency

This week in my Griffith Uni 1205MED Health Challenges for the 21st Century class, we discussed cultural competency and cultural safety. I challenged my students to set themselves a cultural competency experiment/activity for homework – something that they needed to do that would push them outside their own cultural box.

It is too easy for us to think that our experience of life is how it is everywhere.

In Western countries, we are very privileged and sheltered. The experiences of being a child in Australia, the US, Europe, Scandinavia or the UK is vastly different than those in less advantaged countries.

To more broadly consider how culture and environment impact children’s lives differently, look no further than artist Uğur Gallenkuş (@ugrgallen) – his work does this uncompromisingly.

Global Childhood Juxtapositions: World Children’s Day 2019. Bicycles Create Change.com 22nd Nov 2019.
In October 2018, the United Nations warned that 13 million people face starvation in what could be “the worst famine in the world in 100 years. In November 2018, according to the New York Times report, 1.8 million children in Yemen are extremely subject to malnutrition. Image: @ugurgallen.

Global Childhood Juxtapositions: The work of Uğur Gallenkuş.

To honour 2019 World Children’s Day, I’m sharing some of Turkish artist Uğur Gallenkuş work. Uğur is a digital artist who collages images to highlight binaries, juxtapositions and contrasts in human experience. His work comments on conflicts, political issues and social disparities. Some pieces can be quite confronting, others heartfelt, but all have a clear message and are thought-providing.

Uğur’s work forces us to rethink our privilege and remind us that we need to think, feel and act beyond our own immediate cultural experience.

And that many children worldwide need a voice, recognition and help.

Global Childhood Juxtapositions: World Children’s Day 2019. Bicycles Create Change.com 22nd Nov 2019.
A man holds a wounded Syrian baby at a makeshift clinic in the rebel-held town of Douma, on the eastern outskirts of Damascus, on September 26, 2017 following reported air strikes by Syrian government forces. Air strikes killed at least four civilians in a truce zone outside the Syrian capital, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said. Image: @ugurgallen. Photo: Abdullah Hammam @abdullah_hm88 @afpphoto
Global Childhood Juxtapositions: World Children’s Day 2019. Bicycles Create Change.com 22nd Nov 2019.
Nine year old Alladin collects used ammunition to sell as metal in Aleppo, Syria. Image: @ugurgallen. Photo: @niclashammarstrom
Volunteers help a refugee man and baby as refugees hoping to cross into Europe, arrive on the shore of Greece‘s Lesbos Island after crossing the Aegean sea from Turkey on November, 2015. Image: @ugurgallen. Photo: Özge Elif Kızıl @oekizil @anadoluajansi
Global Childhood Juxtapositions: World Children’s Day 2019. Bicycles Create Change.com 22nd Nov 2019.
Yemeni children attend class on the first day of the new academic year in the country’s third-city of Taez on September 3, 2019, at a school that was damaged last year in an air strike during fighting between the Saudi-backed government forces and the Huthi rebels. Image: @ugurgallen. Photo: Ahmad Al-Basha @afpphoto
Global Childhood Juxtapositions: World Children’s Day 2019. Bicycles Create Change.com 22nd Nov 2019.
A child fighter with poses with a gun at a military training facility during the Liberian Civil War. Image: @ugurgallen. Photo: Patrick Robert @gettyimages
Global Childhood Juxtapositions: World Children’s Day 2019. Bicycles Create Change.com 22nd Nov 2019.
Children of displaced Syrian refugee family use paving stones as pillows at Erbil, Iraq in 2013. Image: @ugurgallen. Photo: Emrah Yorulmaz @emrahyorulmaz04 @anadoluajansi
Global Childhood Juxtapositions: World Children’s Day 2019. Bicycles Create Change.com 22nd Nov 2019.
Yelena Shevel, 10, who dreams of becoming a vet, learns to put on a gas mask during training at LIDER, a summer camp in the outskirts of Kiev, Ukraine. She believes that “it is important to defend our homeland because if we don’t do it, then Russia will capture Ukraine and we will become Russia,”. Hundreds of children play war games while they are getting trained in military disciplines and in firing tactics. The armed conflict between Ukraine and Russian-backed separatists is entering its fifth year; the conflict is still festering. Time for playing with toys is gone. Education, living in dreams. Schools are destroyed by indiscriminate shelling or deliberately turned into military posts. Children and teachers stay at home, afraid to step on a landmine or be caught in the crossfire of warring parties. The house of learning, envisioned as a safe haven, becomes a target. Image: @ugurgallen. Photo: Diego Ibarra Sanchez @diego.ibarra.sanchez @natgeo

See more of Uğur’s work on Instagram -it is well worth checking out.

All images are created by Uğur Gallenkuş.

‘One Man’s Tour’ – A Father’s Day gift

'One Man's Tour' - A Father's Day gift -Bicycles Create Change.com 29th Aug 2019.

This Sunday (1st September) is Father’s Day in Australia.

So what to get the biking-crazy, sustainable, amazing dad in your life?

Previously, I have detailed all manner of sustainable and bike-themes gifts, including:

For this Father’s Day – my recommendation has an extra layer of bikey, grassroots, humanity, community, sustainability, travel and creative inspiration folded into it.

My hot tip is to get the documentary film One Man’s Tour.

This is a charity documentary about New Zealand’s inaugural Tour Aotearoa. This brevete event was first run in 2016. A brevet is not a race. It is a ride following a set course, via 30 photo checkpoints, which you must complete between 10 and 30 days – no more and no less. It traverses across incredible scenery and landscapes – and you can well imagine the trials, tribulations and magic moments that occur.

The film follows the 260 brave riders who took on this first epic self-supported 3000km mountain bike ride across New Zealand, which goes from goes from Cape Reinga to Bluff.

The movie is inspiring and shows a range of challenges the riders face. It also shows the inevitable ups and downs that come with taking on endurance non-assisted bike rides – and this event is no different. The scenery is breathtaking and makes you want to grab your bike and book a flight.

Yes, I want this movie! Click here.

'One Man's Tour' - A Father's Day gift -Bicycles Create Change.com 29th Aug 2019.

Aside from being a great film to watch, you decide on how much to pay for this movie!

All funds raised by One Man’s Tour go to World Bicycle Relief (WBR). WBR gives bicycles to communities in Sub-Saharan Africa to help locals better access school, healthcare and stimulate employment opportunities.

In return for the documentary, you decide how much money to give. When you pay on the link below, you will automatically receive an email with a link to stream/download the movie.

The film has already raised $1,279 – with the aim to reach $3,000.

This is a great gift to give – for your dad, a friend, or for yourself.

What’s not to like about supporting family, people, bikes, community and positive living?!

'One Man's Tour' - A Father's Day gift -Bicycles Create Change.com 29th Aug 2019.
'One Man's Tour' - A Father's Day gift -Bicycles Create Change.com 29th Aug 2019.
All images: Tour Aotearoa 2020

Former refugee finds the man who gave her a bike more than 20 years ago

Former refugee finds the man who gave her a bike more than 20 years ago. Bicycles Create Change.com 15th Aug 2019.

I don’t often directly repost stories on this blog. As a luddite, I am also very wary of social media. But amongst the doom and gloom of news reports, husband found this gem of humanity. It is the story of a former refugee, Mevan Babakar, who was given a bike by a refugee camp aid worker. 20 years on, she still remembers the kindness of the man and the joy of riding the bike. Mevan recently used Twitterverse to track the man down. Although this account is more about the power of Twitter and doesn’t have many details about the bike or what happened after she located him, I still love the idea that the simple gift of a biycle to a child can have such a profound and long-last impact.

Previously, this blog has posted about refugees issues and bicycles. With so much political and social insecurity and misinformation about refugees, it is lovely to hear a more personal and caring story of genuine connection, community and sharing.

It is also a reminder to make the effort to say thank you and/or recognise those who help and support us. Some valuable lessons for us all. This story is written by Maani Truu and was published in Australia by SBS online today. Enjoy! NG.

Former refugee finds the man who gave her a bike more than 20 years ago. Bicycles Create Change.com 15th Aug 2019.

Thousands of people have come together from across the globe to unite a former refugee and the aid worker who bought her a bike.

A blurry film photo, a location and a touching Twitter post launched an international hunt to find a man who gifted a young refugee child a bike “out of the kindness of his own heart” more than twenty years ago.

Now, after more than 3,000 retweets and thousands of messages, London woman Mevan Babakar is set to meet the man who made her “five-year-old heart explode with joy” in person.

On Monday, the 29-year-old former refugee posted her quest to Twitter hoping someone would recognise the man who worked at a refugee camp in the Netherlands when she was a child living there in the 90s.

“Hi internet, this is a long-shot BUT I was a refugee for 5 yrs in the 90s and this man, who worked at a refugee camp near Zwolle in the Netherlands, out of the kindness of his own heart bought me a bike,” she wrote.

“My five-year-old heart exploded with joy. I just want to know his name. Help?”

In under 24 hours, the post garnered thousands of responses from around the world and on Tuesday evening, Ms Babakar shared the exciting news.

Former refugee finds the man who gave her a bike more than 20 years ago. Bicycles Create Change.com 15th Aug 2019.

“Guys, I knew the internet was great but this is something else,” she said.

“We found him!”

Ms Babakar, who was born in Baghdad, Iraq, to Kurdish parents, also said she was not the only refugee to be helped by the unidentified man, known only as “Ab”.

“I’ve also had other refugees reach out to me and tell me that he and his wife helped them too! Their kindness has touched so many lives,” she wrote.

Former refugee finds the man who gave her a bike more than 20 years ago. Bicycles Create Change.com 15th Aug 2019.

“One woman said ‘they weren’t friends to me, they were family’.”

According to BBC News, Ms Babakar and her parents fled Iraq during the first Gulf war, passing through refugee camps in Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Russia before spending a year at the one near Zwolle between 1994 and 1995.

Ms Babakar is now a tech expert, who currently lives in the UK and she has travelled back to Zwolle to research her family’s past.

Text and all images: SBS News.

A bicycle prayer-wheel projector in the Himalaya

A bicycle prayer-wheel projector in the Himalaya. Bicycles Create Change.com. 27th February 2019.

Alexander Csoma de Koros was a Hungarian traveller/explorer who traveled to Tibet in 1820 where he learnt the language and culture.

Csoma ended up being a cross-cultural pioneer for both countries and forged a long-standing language, cultural and learning exchange between the two nations which still endures today.

To commemorate Csoma’s spirit of cultural support and exchange, Hungarian conceptual tech lab Kitchen Budapest has created a low-tech kinetic image projector called Csoma’s Wheel.

A bicycle prayer-wheel projector in the Himalaya. Bicycles Create Change.com. 27th February 2019.
A bicycle prayer-wheel projector in the Himalaya. Bicycles Create Change.com. 27th February 2019.
A bicycle prayer-wheel projector in the Himalaya. Bicycles Create Change.com. 27th February 2019.

Csoma’s Wheel is a bicycle-based installation that uses traditional Tibetan prayer wheel design as the base structure to create an electronic art/image projector.

The LED flashing prayer-wheel is made from two bicycle wheels, bike and other parts, LEDs and a concrete block. When the wheel is rotated by hand, the spinning generates enough electricity to power a strip of LEDs that shine light through a perforated screen or drum. From these LEDs, a basic animated image is projected onto the concrete block.

The designers have loftily claimed Csoma’s Wheel to be “the first ‘new media treasure’ of the Himalayas”.

This project has been completed and is installed in the Csoma’s Room (also called Csoma’s Santuary), which is charity school supported by Csoma’s Room Foundation in the Zanglar in the Himalaya. This foundation supports locals by supplying funds, skills and volunteers to help revive a local Palace, repair Bhuddist temples, and build schools and homes.

The homes and schools are all completely solar-powered.

This NGO uses sustainable local materials (adobe bricks), revives and utilises traditional construction and handicraft skills, supports local economic and labour/skill (income-generating) opportunities, builds more schools and homes and provides solar power.

In keeping with Alexander’s spirit, there is a strong emphasis on promoting local heritage and using local Zanglar skills, practices and materials to reduce reliance on high tech, resource-dependant, imported materials.

The bicycle prayer-wheel projector was installed to complement the recent completion of major construction to Csoma’s Sanctuary, which is visited by many international visitors each year.

This is certainly one of the more unique and innovative ways to use bicycles!

A bicycle prayer-wheel projector in the Himalaya. Bicycles Create Change.com. 27th February 2019.
A bicycle prayer-wheel projector in the Himalaya. Bicycles Create Change.com. 27th February 2019.

All images courtesy of Csoma’s Room