14.03.2021

​Wheels to Africa – Sending Bikes to Those Who Need them Most !

​Wheels to Africa is a youth engagement project that collects bicycles for needy communities in Africa and provides leadership opportunities for American youth. For the past nine years, teens across the Washington, D.C., area have organized events to collect used bicycles and to raise the money to ship them to Africa. Once in Africa, the bikes are transforming lives: helping college students make their way to classes, aid workers deliver medical supplies and farmers reach markets faster. Life in remote African villages is often proscribed by a lack of viable transportation. Students must walk miles to the nearest school or pay bus fees that exceed the family's income. Farmers struggle to get their goods to a broader market. Aid workers take hours getting from village to village. A bicycle can change that, opening up worlds to families trapped in their villages. But with no bicycle manufacturer on the African continent, bikes are rare and expensive. At this moment, thousands of bikes are languishing in garages across the United States, gathering dust as their users buy better models or simply stop riding. Each of these bicycles could increase an African family's income by 25% and its efficiency by 50%. Wheels to Africa connects the two: Teens organize and staff bike collection drives and raise the money for shipping about 500 bikes a year. In Tanzania, nonprofits, schools & orphanages distribute the bikes to families & students.
Credit: WASTE ED