CS Monitor, November 18, 2012
Life in rural Zambia has improved dramatically for dairy farmer Cecil Hankambe. He has doubled his milk sales, purchased a farm, and earned enough money to send his children to school. He still milks the same cow and travels the same rugged roads to the local dairy co-op. The only difference now: Instead of lugging a heavy jug on foot, he pedals a bicycle.
Life in rural Zambia has improved dramatically for dairy farmer Cecil Hankambe. He has doubled his milk sales, purchased a farm, and earned enough money to send his children to school. He still milks the same cow and travels the same rugged roads to the local dairy co-op. The only difference now: Instead of lugging a heavy jug on foot, he pedals a bicycle.
Mr. Hankambe rides a Buffalo, a bike so sturdy and
basic that its steel frame can carry up to 220 pounds and be repaired
with a rock. Instead of delivering only seven to 10 liters of milk a
day, Hankambe can now transport 15 to 20 liters to a chilling station
before it spoils, boosting his profit.
“A reliable bike can create reliability in a dairy
farmer’s income,” says F.K. Day, founder of World Bicycle Relief, a
foundation based in Chicago that produces the Buffalo and provides
two-wheeled aid to people in developing nations. “You forget how
important transportation is.”
Mr. Day cringes at the word “philanthropist,” even
though his nonprofit group since 2005 has raised more than $13.5
million, distributed 116,000 bicycles at $134 each across 11 countries
in Africa, and trained more than 800 bicycle mechanics.
“There is not a greater gift that one can give a
community than an economic engine,” says Day. “An industrial revolution
on a personal level can push someone’s productivity forward and help
them to help their families and communities.”
Before you think of Day as an enterprising
industrialist who has arrived on the African continent to build a
bicycle empire, let’s back up. As a teenager, he flew—on his own
initiative—from Chicago to Brazil to knock on the door of Irish priests
who were building schools in São Paulo’s poorest neighborhoods. They
hadn’t responded to his letters. But when he showed up on their
doorstep, they had no choice but to put him to work.
That experience laid the groundwork for what
followed three decades later. On Dec. 26, 2004, horrific images of
tsunami-swept Southeast Asia flickered on TV screens in the United
States. Day, now a successful cofounder of SRAM, an elite bicycle-parts
manufacturer, wanted to do more than just fund relief efforts.
So he and his wife, Leah, boarded a plane to Sri
Lanka. Within weeks, Day had partnered with World Vision; he eventually
oversaw the distribution of 24,000 bicycles that gave thousands of
people affected by the tsunami the ability to reach their jobs, schools,
and health-care centers.
From that experience, Day built his own model for a
sustainable philanthropy, spoke by spoke, and World Bicycle Relief hit
the road. Since 2005, its core strategy has remained simple: Provide
transportation in the wake of disasters, help health-care workers visit
more clients, make it easier for rural schoolchildren (particularly
girls) to reach distant classrooms, increase the amount of goods people
transport to market.
World Bicycle Relief now partners with groups
(which buy Buffalo bikes to distribute through aid and microfinance
programs) in Zambia, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Angola, South Africa, Botswana,
Malawi, Mozambique, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda. Day, who makes
several field trips to Africa a year, says there is no replacement for
hands-on experience.
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