Just stumbled across this charity organisation Bicycles For Humanity.
Bicycles for Humanity – Tokyo (B4H-Tokyo) is a charitable organization founded by Andrew Eickhoff to further the mission of Bicycles For Humanity (B4H) to empower the people of Africa by helping them solve the basic problem of mobility. A bicycle allows a healthcare worker to visit 3 to 4 times the number of patients in a day, it allows a mother to transport water and get her goods to market. For students living a long way from schools, it allows them more time and energy for studies and helping at home.
The basic idea is to raise around ¥70,0000, collect 400 used bicycles, buy a shipping crate and send it to Africa. Together we can make it!
A bike can change a life in a poor country. Yet for millions of people on the lowest incomes, a new bicycle is financially out of reach.
Meanwhile, millions of perfectly good bicycles lie unused in North America, Europe, Japan and elsewhere in the world.
Bicycles for Humanity began in September 2005 with the simple aim of enabling people to raise funds and collect unwanted bicycles to send to reliable partners in developing countries.
In developing countries, Bicycles for Humanity, in partnership with organizations in that country, provides resources and support to make the process accountable and efficient. In developing countries, it works at the grassroots level to ensure that disadvantaged people are empowered through improved access to food and water, employment, healthcare, education and social opportunities.
Our movement continues to grow for 3 simple reasons:
1. It empowers caring entrepreneurial-minded people in Africa to step up and make a difference in their communities.
2. It links people here with like-minded people in Africa. Together, they tell the story of the need, collect the bikes and raise the funds to empower whole communities.
3. Accountability, honesty and humanity are the foundation of our movement. The more the people of Africa demonstrate this, the more support comes forward.
Our focus in 2008 was on distributing the Bicycling Empowerment Centre (BEC), a complete package that addresses bicycle delivery to remote areas, access to tools, training and spare parts.
The Bicycle Empowerment Centre (BEC) program was a huge success with now over twelve of them placed across all of Namibia. In 2009 we will launch Top UP, a program designed to send more bikes to communities that already have a BEC.
On this site, you will find information about volunteering, collections and developing country projects. You will come to know the people we empower and the many ways that recipients use bicycles to create new opportunities for themselves, their families, and their communities.
You will also find ways that you or your community group, service club, school, sport club, religious organization or business can get involved. There are opportunities to support our projects by working within your community and through direct connections with partners in a developing countries. Help send a BEC to a community in need.
Please visit our Humanity Rocks Initiative to find out more about how you can join and become a part of this grassroots movement.