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Bikes can help open route to better life

Adrienne Ascah - September 26, 2007 - Ottawa, ON

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September 26, 2007 - Cleaning out the basement just got meaningful.

That old bike you never use could be the vehicle that helps a healthcare worker deliver medicine to HIV patients in a poor African country. The distance from a child’s village to the nearest school would no longer be insurmountable.

The Ottawa chapter of Bicycles for Humanity is having a bike collection day on Saturday.

The goal is 400 bikes, which will be shipped to Rundu, Namibia, a southern African country located between Angola and South Africa. Namibia has one of the world’s highest rates of HIV/AIDS, with 23 per cent of people, mainly women., afflicted.

“The biggest problem now isn’t actually medication for AIDS/HIV, but it’s access to it” said Seb Oran, who started B4H with her partner Sandra Gattola in April. “The problem in Namibia is 60 per cent of people have no access to transportation other than their feet”

Communities of women have forged home-based care, making partnerships with volunteer organizations. Giving a bicycle to a health care worker means more time with patients and less time walking.

“Now, with the bicycle, they can visit two to three times more people and be able to deliver medication to them” Oran said.

As Namibia’s roads are rough and unpaved, B4H is collecting mountain bikes and hybrid or street bikes. The bike should be on good working order, not a frame without tires. Ten-speed bikes, racing bikes and children’s bikes will not be collected.

“Small children’s bikes don’t really become essential transportation” said Oran. “Youth would be the ones that are using the bikes to get to school and smaller children would get rides with them... (Bikes) also help teachers get to schools.”

Bicycles for Humanity began in 2005 when Kelowna resident Pat Montani, after successfully transporting bikes to a Mexico orphanage, struck up a partnership with Namibia’s Bicycling Empowerment Network (BEN) which transports bikes into remote areas and provides maintenance and repair training.

Since then, chapters have sprung up in other parts of BC and Ontario and similar initiatives exist worldwide.

On Saturday, about 30 volunteers will load the bikes into a 40 foot shipping container that will convert into a bike workshop for BEN Namibia.

Saturday’s collection will also take used backpacks and soccer gear. “The soccer gear is like a ray of sunshine... this container will be almost air-tight.”