My Time, My Ride, My Choice

In 2015 Bikes for the World sent our first container of bikes to the established Moroccan program known as DARNA (Our House). DARNA was started, and continues to operate as a safe home for women and children.

Recognizing a mother's role in a strong, thriving family, DARNA put emphasis on creating opportunities and training for women and young girls. To assist in the effort to keep kids enrolled in school, DARNA introduced bicycles to those students at risk of dropping out due to long, tiring commutes.

From our initial donation, over 400 students received bicycles in northern Morocco. 117 of these student beneficiaries were girls.

This summer Bikes for the World helped place another container of bikes with DARNA through St. Louis Bicycle Works. Bicycle Works operates a youth program in St. Louis and a couple times a year finds itself with an overstock of bikes for their program.

When they approached us this year to place another container we identified the need from Morocco and found St. Louis had the type of bikes requested. It was a match!

This shipment arrived late in September and students have already been paired with bikes. This time, the bikes were distributed among nearly 40 different communities and the kids ranged in age from 8-17.

We checked back in with several of the students who received bikes from the first donation in 2015. Laila (on the left) loves her bike because she can go to school with her friends. Her mom agrees, noticing that since her daughter received a bike her grades have improved. Laila now has more time to study and arrives to school early and less tired.

Miriem (on the right) uses her bike to visit her Grandmother who lives far away. She can now travel that distance on her own schedule, without needing to wait for public transportation which can also be expensive. "I feel much more independent now."

Miriem also enjoys the physical exercise her bike provides. "I feel like a bird, I love it!"

Update From Morocco

Bikes of the World is excited to announce that we have placed a second container of bikes with one of our newer partners established in 2015.

DARNA (meaning Our House) operates in northern Morocco helping to give a leg up to the under served population of the region. Our bikes were introduced to the program in 2015 in an effort to empower students.

Our first container was distributed among four different school districts to help students remain in school by easing their long commutes which had previously been done on foot.

In August of this year, we shipped a second container to DARNA with the help of sister organization St. Louis Bicycle Works. The bikes were reconditioned and donated to more than 40 villages near Jebel Bouhachem Nature Reserve.

Tarik and Anas

Tarik and Anas live just outside the bustling city of Tangier in northern Morocco.  Both guys received bikes from our first donated container a couple years ago.

Tarik told us that his bicycle is very important to him because he could not afford to pay for transportation. From his home in Ziaten, Tangier is about a 90 minute walk.

Now that he has a bike, he reports better attendance in school. He also said he now signs up for more training programs offered through school because he knows he can get there.

Physically Tarik now finds himself in better shape, which he knows is important to his overall health. He is also very proud to own a bicycle and says, "having a bicycle makes me more independent!"

BfW's Newest Partner Helping Students In Morocco

Bikes for the World's next shipment of bikes is heading to Northern Africa to a group called Darna in Tangier, Morocco. This pilot effort will mostly serve the youth project, the bikes being distributed to kids ages 8-15.

This is our first time shipping to Darna (meaning Our House) and only their second container of bikes ever, the other delivered from a French group about seven years ago. Depending on the success of the received shipment, we hope to continue donating bikes to this group in the future.

Our bikes will be used for youth empowerment, the majority to be distributed to students to assist in their commutes to school in Tangier.

Darna runs comprehensive social programs including a youth community house, women's community house, and a teaching farm. The youth and women's houses provide temporary homes for children and women at-risk. They also provide various training programs to help them re-integrate into society.

The Farm School helps encourage agricultural development and a return to the agricultural sector outside of Tangier. The Farm houses 30 children, many boys at-risk. The boys receive agricultural training while there, as well as training in agricultural machinery repair.

The boys at the Farm School will be learning the mechanical skills needed to help refurbish our donated bikes to put them into use for this program.

Bikes will be made available to youth living in nearby, low-income apartments to help them get to and from school.

One of Darna's main focuses is to get kids off dangerous streets and into school where they receive an education and learn job skills. They are also surrounded by positive role models that help provide a community of learning and empowerment.

This initial container of bikes will serve to address two focuses in Darna's overall mission. First, boys enrolled in the Farm School will learn valuable mechanic skills while repairing bikes donated through Bikes for the World. Second, many youth, especially young girls, will receive a bicycle to help them get an education and travel quickly through the dangerous streets of Tangier.

Girls on the streets who are illiterate and uneducated often find themselves forced into a life of prostitution and eventually face drug abuse and AIDS. The Girls' Center at Darna provides girls with emergency, transitional, and long term housing; professional and civic training; and an education in not only reading, writing and arithmetic but also in their rights and duties as citizens.

Photos courtesy DARNA.