Creating Jobs and Increasing Wages

As soon as a Bikes for the World container hits the ground overseas its impact on the community is immediate. From unloading bikes, to recording inventory, and especially repairing and rebuilding bikes by a skilled mechanic, the arrival of the container first and foremost generates jobs.

In Guinea-Bissau our container directly affected seven established bike repairers who were called upon by Global Fairness Initiative to help refurbish the bikes donated through BfW in 2015.

Bacar Mamudu is 65 years old and has been repairing bikes for the past 16 years. His bike business boomed when our bikes arrived in need of repair. Bacar charged for repairs and offered his services on loan to villagers who could not pay upfront.

Bacar was thrilled to see so many bikes coming into the community, "Now I receive so many more bikes per month in need of repair. This has had a positive impact on my monthly income." Bacar went on to say he was learning many new skills working on the bikes which are different than other bikes he's seen in the past.

Famta Fati is a member of the local farming association APALCOF. She purchased one of the bikes donated to APALCOF last year through BfW. Now that Famta has a bicycle she is able to commute to her horticulture farm much faster than when she was traveling by foot.

Previously Famta walked several miles a day in the sweltering sun just to get to and from her field. After working all day in her crops, without shade, she often felt worn out and less productive.

She now reports having more time in the fields and at home not to mention more energy to do her work. She feels much healthier and less stressed. She is also using the bike to help transport her produce to a roadside market.

Maimuna Blade dropped out of school before graduating, but is working toward saving enough money to go back to continue her education. She purchased a bike from APALCOF which she uses for work, errands, and social activities.

"My bike encourages me to work harder not only to go back to school, but also in carrying on other community activities which are far apart."

Maimuna works on her family's agricultural farm and uses her bike to collect fire wood and carry animal feed to the farm. She is able to save twice as much money now that she has a bicycle, making her dream of returning to school within reach.

Update From Guinea-Bissau

In 2015, Bikes for the World added a new partner in Guinea-Bissau in collaboration with the Global Fairness Initiative. Over 400 bikes were donated through the Guinea-Bissau Livelihood Initiative, which just came to an end this year.

Many of our newer partners come about through larger projects looking to expand transportation solutions while also increasing capital to help fund the overall mission of the project. Fixing and selling our donated bikes brings needed transportation to isolated villages, helps establish new jobs and businesses, and helps sustain the initial project.

In Madagascar, we worked in tandem with Transaid to help support a multi-year effort to bring better health care to rural areas of the country. A bike component was introduced toward the end of the project to help fund aspects of the health care initiative such as the emergency transport system and health insurance policies for the members of the co-op. The idea is that when the project ends, and in turn much of the overseeing support from the establishing non profit, the program will continue and thrive being sustained by its own community.

In Guinea-Bissau that larger non profit is Global Fairness Initiative (GFI), which helped establish the Guinea-Bissau Livelihood Initiative (GBLI) to support and strengthen local farming associations and their communities. Similarly, as in Madagascar, the bike component was introduced to help support projects initiated through this larger program.

For GBLI, that larger program centered around food security. GBLI implemented a series of interventions tailored to the unique needs of its beneficiary communities. These interventions aimed to strengthen the foundation of beneficiaries’ farming activities so that they could progress from subsistence farming to farming as a business.

APALCOF is a women's farming collective of more than 3,500 smallholder producers singled out by GFI. GBLI worked with APALCOF and its members to strengthen their capacity, increase access to markets, and ultimately improve their livelihoods.

In collaboration with Bikes for the World and GFI, APALCOF distributed our donated bikes in 2016. The bikes and spare parts were sold to farmers in Bafata and Gabu at discounted prices. The money earned through bike sales was reinvested into a bank account to support the micro-credit program, thus increasing access to loans to beneficiaries.

The bikes served as a means of transportation for farmers during their farming activities, often eliminating extra time and energy exerted to travel from the wells to the field or from their homes to markets. Children also used the bikes to go to school, some of which were upwards of 5 kilometers from their home village. Additionally, the bikes were particularly helpful to women and families, who used the bikes to go to health centers.

Guinea-Bissau: BfW Assists Rural Farmers

Seventy-five percent of the world’s poorest people live in rural areas as subsistence farmers. This means there can be no release from the cycle of poverty without addressing agriculture. The Global Fairness Initiative (GFI)’s ‘Guinea-Bissau Livelihood Initiative’ is doing just that. They are working to improve agricultural production, market access, and farming regulations in Guinea-Bissau.
 

In the region of Bafatá, GFI partners with a local women’s cooperative called APALCOF (Association of Female Producers and the Self-Promotion for the Fight Against Hunger). The cooperative is comprised of 3,500 female smallholder farmers in 29 communities in the region. They work to improve their members’ livelihood through enhancing nutrition, using technology to reduce required manual labor, promoting access to healthcare, and encouraging literacy.

With the bikes provided from the partnership with Bikes for the World, APALCOF will be able to sell bikes at affordable prices to its women members and their families, most of whom work on rice and onion farms. In West Africa, women are often given last choice of fields after their male relatives, typically meaning the fields furthest from their homes. They travel miles on foot every day, often with a baby on their back.

Women not only work to produce on their farms, but are also generally responsible for nearly all domestic chores. They need to find time in their day to cook, clean, collect water, and care for their children and husband, all while still working long days in their fields to produce food for their families. Moreover, many spend hours every week to carry their goods (often on their heads) to markets to earn a little money for their families.

These are some of the strongest women around, but the enormous amounts of time and physical labor required can reduce their efficiency and make it hard for them to escape poverty. Access to a bike can make a world of difference. A bike can mean less time on chores, more time with family, a smaller toll on the body, and the ability to generate more income.

Not only will this project help women and their families access affordable transportation, but the revenues generated will be reinvested into APALCOF’s micro-finance program and given out as loans to members to establish or strengthen entrepreneurial activities, helping the women improve even further the well-being of themselves and their families.