Dispatches from the Field & Project Summaries
One Year Update
May 19, 2010
Questions & Answer: Michael Linke
Have you noticed an increase in the overall cycling infrastructure in Namibia?
No, infrastructure development has been slow to get moving on. The city of Windhoek is however close to releasing a call for tenders on a non-motorised transport master plan for the city, something that certainly wasn’t on the radar when we first started lobbying for it.
Are more citizens choosing bikes as their primary mode of transportation?
Yes, anecdotally cycling is increasing. We feel that BEN Namibia has had some impact on this, as we have now distributed almost 15,000 bikes in the country, most of those in the last two years.
Has BENN partnered with other community-based organizations like Hope Family Services to supply bicycles and training to?
We have 22 partners throughout the country that we have helped to establish community based bike shops, including FHS.
How is the emergency transportation/ambulance service going? Are you seeing an increase in overall community health with this support in place?
The ambulance project has been challenging because of lack of resources within communities to manage their maintenance. We have begun reallocating some ambulances to be within range of our partner bicycle shops to enable maintenance to take place. In locations where they have been maintained, though, they have enabled people to provide emergency medical transport where no other alternatives were available.
Is BENN offering employment opportunities within the organization? What jobs are available to the community?
Each of our partner bicycle shops employs up to 5 people. The shop network currently employs 90 people, exactly half of whom are women.
Is Josh still active on the bicycling circuit in Namibia? What has his progress been since we last saw him?
Josh is still cycling, though he’s based in South Africa where he studies. I have heard that he is racing with a team in South Africa but haven’t been able to confirm this.
Bicycle Empowerment Network – Namibia
March 19, 2009
In the first world, the bicycle is often viewed as just one of many options for transport, a mode of sport and recreation or simply a child’s toy. In developing nations, the bicycle is a vehicle capable of changing lives and, in very raw terms, can make the difference between employment and abject poverty; access to health care or death. With a rock-solid grasp on the many ways that bicycles improve lives and livelihoods in challenged communities, Bicycle Empowerment Network Namibia (BENN) quickly evolved from a mist of heady aspirations to remarkable achievements with massive positives effects in a breathtakingly short window of time – a glimpse into their successes:
In a partnership with Bicycles to Humanity, BENN receives shipping containers loaded with bicycles donated from developed countries along with spare parts and tools. These “shops in a shipping container” are received by BENN and then distributed to community-based organizations to be run as bicycle workshops that offer bike sales and repairs in impoverished communities. In a land where personal cars are a rarity; public transportation and taxis can be prohibitively expensive yet great distances separate people from basic necessities, bicycles sustainably expand individuals’ range and efficiency of travel, allowing workers to get to their place of employment, students get to their schools and health care workers reach the homes of patients living with HIV/AIDS and malaria.
The humble shipping containers filled with second-hand bikes that transform into BENN bicycle workshops facilitate the distribution of bicycles into communities, but also operate as income-generating businesses. Along with the container and its contents, BENN provides recipient organizations with vocational training in bike mechanical skills, small business management and customer service. Profits from these businesses flow into community-based organizations such as Family Hope Center, serving 450 kids in the Katutura community by providing educational programs, meals and health care to orphans, HIV positive or otherwise vulnerable children.
But bike workshops are just a part of BENN’s work. They have also built and distributed over 100 bicycle ambulances – simple but sturdy gurney trailers that attach to the back of a bike, facilitating the transport of sick people from outlying communities to health services, sparing patients the cost of taxi services that, in many cases, puts medical treatment financially out of reach.
BENN also aids the Physically Active Youth (PAY) program in Windhoek, Namibia, an after-school program that provides tutoring and sports activities for financially challenged students that, with the donation of bikes from BENN, has added a cycling program including a racing team.
With the distribution of bikes to PAY participants, marginalized kids take ownership of an identifiable possession that liberates them, expanding their physical range and efficiency of travel along with all the positives of involvement in an organized sport. An additional regional, cultural component makes this program really novel, the equivalent of putting a man on the moon in the 1960s – putting a girl on a bicycle in Namibia in 2008.
The gender divide, particularly amongst the impoverished in Namibia, is profound and most of the students in the cycling program had never seen a woman ride a bike before seeing the girls in the program pedal alongside them. The girls we spoke with were warned that “girls aren’t supposed to ride bikes” by their family members; teased and threatened by schoolmates and strangers alike.
I spoke with Emily who told me that she was the first girl she had ever known to have ever ridden a bike in her community. Marianna and Sonya, two other girls in the bicycling program, told me that Emily was the first girl they’d ever seen ride a bike and when they saw that she could do it, they figured they could too… now all 3 of them race, speak with pride about surprising their families and communities with their accomplishments in a sport that their participation had never been dreamed of before.
Aside from supporting the endeavors of the PAY project, BENN has its own racing team (Team BENN) that’s committed to developing the sport of bicycle racing as well as combating the spread of HIV/AIDS in Namibia. These may sound like lofty, disparate goals, but when your athletes are primarily from poor communities that have been ravaged by HIV/AIDS, the connection’s an easy one to make.
The main focus of Team BENN’s educational mission has been focused promoting HIV /AIDS testing and, as Team BENN’s bright jerseys state, “KNOW YOUR STATUS” alongside images of red AIDS ribbons. Leveraging the excitement around racing events, BENN offered incentives encouraging testing including entry in a lottery to win a bike. A phenomenally successful program, testing participation increased 6 fold during the promotion.
What of the racers? They’re damn talented, especially in light of the fact that most of the team members come from backgrounds where owning any bike, much less a racing bike, was cost prohibitive, these racers are taking podium positions with top finishes in a sport that they’d never dreamed they’d ever participate in, much less compete. With fire, discipline and assistance from BENN, team racers are competing alongside riders with sponsorships and thousands of dollars of equipment and placing as top finishers. A recent Team BENN rider signed a contract to ride professionally with a South African Team, while his former teammates are challenging the established teams, snatching up podium placements and getting word out about AIDS awareness and testing every mile of the way.
Bicycle Empowerment Network Namibia – humble non-profit; incredible achievements.