Give the gift of bikes
Jamie O'Meara
jomeara@hour.ca
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Oran: Queen of the two-wheelers
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Of all the mystifying things my parents said to me when I was but a wee bairn, and there were many to be sure, there was one particular and oft-repeated command/dangling threat that really gnawed at my noggin: "Eat your food, there are people starving in Africa." Seems that, even as a kid, I had an instinctive antipathy for non-sequiturs.More to the point, I had no idea what eating my food had to do with some unfortunate person in Africa - in fact, me stuffing my face was very likely taking food off the plate of the very person I was supposed to be concerned about. To my mind, "Don't eat your food, there are people starving in Africa" would have been a far more concise (and convenient) way of stating things. Though the problem of getting all those goddamn boiled potatoes to Africa before they got cold and even more inedible seemed insurmountably problematic.
Would have been helpful to have folks like Seb Oran around. You see, Oran - a Montrealer now living in Ottawa - is especially good at sending things to Africa. Specifically, bicycles. And loads of them. Oran is a founding member of the Ottawa chapter of the non-profit Bicycles for Humanity (BFH), and she is also a dear friend, so I can ask her how unbalanced you'd have to be to dedicate virtually every free moment of your spare time for the last two years rounding up unwanted bicycles and she won't get offended. Rather, she explains...
"We collect used bikes sitting around in people's basements or garages and put them to good use in
communities in Africa," says Oran. "And what the bikes do over there is improve access to health care and education, food, water and employment. Bicycles for Humanity is pure grassroots: Everyone's a volunteer and every dime goes to fund the project - there are no administrative costs."The other impressive thing is the monumental difference a simple used bike can make.
"A bike here is recreational for the most part. There, 60 per cent of people, in rural areas especially, have no access to transportation other than their feet. People regularly walk five to 10 kilometres for employment. Schools in rural areas can be the same distance away, so a bike can mean the difference between getting an education and not. Health care workers, who walk medicine to maybe one or two people a day, could see as many as four or five.
"The bikes go to volunteer community-based organizations," she adds. "These groups are engaged in their communities helping with things like HIV/AIDS, taking care of orphans, low income employment and women's empowerment."
Up until now, all of the bikes have been distributed in Namibia - over 7,000 bikes have been delivered by the organization's 25 chapters since work began in 2005 - because BFH has a "very reliable" partner there who administers and monitors the process. Plans are afoot, however, to expand to Malawi and ultimately Uganda. Lots of bikes, on what we might imagine are something less than well-maintained bike paths, means lots of repairs though, no?
"Ah! Part of the whole thing is that we also create employment: Five of the people receiving the bikes also become bike mechanics," Oran explains. "We don't just send 350 bikes in a container: We buy the container and we ship it there and the container actually becomes the bicycle workshop. We cut out the doors and windows and put a heat-shielding roof on it and shelving, and they operate out of there.
"Five people are trained for four weeks on how to be bicycle mechanics, everything from theory to practice. And then they receive two weeks of business management training, and then they open up what we call a Bicycle Empowerment Centre. It's a bike shop in a box. Cool, eh?"
Très. Oran is currently working on her fourth container, and she will be holding a Bike Drive in Ottawa on May 30 in the hopes of filling it (for info on location and types of bikes they require, go to www.bicycles-for-humanity.org/Ottawa/index.php). And in welcome news, Montrealers who wish to contribute won't have to hump their bikes all the way to the nation's capital.
"We're just getting the ball rolling in Montreal," says Giselle Murphy, one of the founders of the newly formed Montreal chapter of BFH. "The reason why we started is that throughout the winter we saw a lot of bikes rotting on poles and we thought, 'How can we give these bikes another life?'"
Now Murphy, along with co-conspirators Stephanie Thompson and Rayna Goldman, have committed to sending 350 bikes to Namibia from Montreal by October which, in addition to rounding up the wheels, also means raising the roughly $25 per bike it costs to ship them.
"It takes a lot of work to raise the $9,000 needed to send the bikes, which includes the cost of the container, so we're really looking for support through donations, or people who'd like to do events in our name," says Murphy.
In the meantime, the women have organized two drop-off dates, Sept. 26 and Oct. 17, at Lachine Canal bike shop My Bicyclette (www.mybicyclette.com). For more info on the Montreal chapter and how you can help, visit www.bicycles-for-humanity.org/Montreal/index.php. And if you don't feel like waiting until September, Murphy has this suggestion:
"For people who have a bike sitting in their garage that they want to give away now, they can email us at montreal@bicycles-for-humanity.org. If we get enough inquiries we'll arrange to come pick it up."
All of which goes to say, and as my parents might have chided: Ride your bike, there are people walking in Africa.
I was delighted to read your article about Seb Oran.Ihave known Seb for many years, she is one of the most wonderful person I have ever known and she is doing a great contribution to humanity with "Bicycle for Humanity in Africa. I am not surprised that you wrote this wonderful article about a well deserved cause. Thank you, Jamie Omeara for a well written article article.
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Liliane Burnett
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