All posts by Michael Sabrio

Albania, bicycles, InGear - The Newsletter of P4P

Fall 2018: Bike School and Bike Jobs in Tirana, Albania

By the Ecovolis Team
Fall 2018 InGear


It was a Saturday afternoon when the activists of EcoVolis went out as usual to patrol the new bicycle lanes here in Tirana, Albania. In one lane there was a motorcycle driving fast, in another a car that had completely blocked the bike lane. A total of 12 miles of lanes built in a very short time by the head of PASS/Ecovolis, now titled the “Bike Mayor”. PASS and Pedals for Progress are the right combination to turn Tirana into the City of Bikes.

In just a moment we counted over ten bikers using the lanes. It was a rare emotion for the activists who have fought for ten years for protected lanes. Now these lanes are flowing rivers of bikers. Just like boats on true rivers, these bikers go about their days on these lanes.

We take a look back in time: How did we get here? The collaboration with Pedals for Progress gave the opportunity to PASS, the mother organization of EcoVolis, to undertake tens and hundreds of activities with the mission to return bikes to Tirana. It was the start of this partnership in 2000 that decided how things were going to be for the bikers of Tirana today. And how beautiful things are!

There are daily bikers for the Day Care, Two-wheels Academy, Free the Lanes, weekend biking, tour guides for guests, bikes for kids who cannot afford them, bikes for the elderly and the communities that need them. One great example is the transformation of 30 bikes from P4P into cargo bikes for the Romani community to work in the recycling field (a total of 60 new jobs).


The number of bikers in Tirana has grown tenfold. At the EcoVolis Service shop a lot of bikers come to repair or exchange their bikes for better ones from the U.S.A. This led us to start to train young girls and boys to repair bikes in order to open more EcoVolis Service points and also to create new jobs for more people.

Now that there are more than 7000 bikes from P4P, EcoVolis has another ambitious mission: to open a bike school. Taking as examples other countries where bikes are ubiquitous—the Netherlands and Denmark, for example—Tirana is also at the point in which it is opening the first schools for bikes, with the full support of P4P. This school, now in the planning stages, is expected to add 3000–4000 bikers to the lanes per year.

To change movement in a city with over 1 million inhabitants is the story of the success of a strong partnership like the one between U.S.A./P4P and Albania/PASS. When we look back we cannot believe that fate and time approached us with such a virtuous organization, whose support and energy helped us to create so many jobs for the community and to make a two-wheel revolution for our city. Thank you, Pedals For Progress. You are already a Nobel Prize organization.

InGear - The Newsletter of P4P

President’s Message, Fall 2018

America has always been great!

From September 4, 1776, the first day our Continental Congress met, America has been great. We’ve had our ups and downs, times of great pride, and unfortunately times of shame, but the enduring spirit of the American people continues. We have at times lost our way but have been able to rally back and we will again.

I was raised by a single Mom. We existed on the survivor benefits from my deceased father’s Social Security and Veterans benefits, plus surplus USDA food. While I never truly went hungry, I was often hungry by choice just because of the poor quality of what was offered.

I grew up in southeastern Massachusetts at a time when Kennedy was President and the United States represented that gleaming city on the top of the hill. I was deeply inspired by President Kennedy. He was tremendously admired by all of the population of Massachusetts. He was not a God; he was a man with his good sides and bad and I’m sure the #MeToo Movement would have had trouble accepting him. That side was never made public, at least to children in 1963, but Kennedy inspired us. He dared us to try the impossible and although he was fallible, his efforts changed the course of history.

Even as a youngster I was political. My mother always had us watch the nightly news and would discuss what was going on in the world. We watched every speech Kennedy made. The one that sticks in my mind the most was the one in which he challenged us, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country”. That has been a core philosophy of my life. The second most memorable thing was when he with his brother-in-law Sargent Shriver started the Peace Corps. Nobody expected it to work, but it has been part of his enduring legacy. Our lives were shit, but I learned that there were other people even worse off. I forced my mother to send an application to the Peace Corps. I didn’t know what I could do but I knew a lot about agriculture and raising animals. We gardened in the summer so food was better then. I had a flock of chickens and sold eggs up and down the street so at least we always had eggs in the house. I had newspaper routes, shoveled snow in the winter and mowed lawns in the summer just to bring in some money so that we could afford better food. I really saw not a lot of hope and I thought if I joined the Peace Corps in a country where people were worse off perhaps I would be better off.

Amazingly a Peace Corps recruiter called up and he explained to me that I was too young, and that I should go to college and learn a skill so that I would be better prepared to work overseas.

A lot of time went by. The Vietnam War came and went. I graduated from college with a relatively useless degree but being in college kept me out of the draft. I started working after college at a carpentry factory but I really still saw no future for myself. In 1977 I remembered my old dream and decided it was time to take the future into my own hands and I joined the Peace Corps.

I remember the plane taking off from Logan Airport in Boston on its way to Miami and thinking to myself, “What did you get yourself into this time?” I served for 2 and a half years in the Amazon basin of Ecuador with the tribe of indigenous American Indians called the Shuar. My job was as a land surveyor to survey the land of the Shuar Federation to give them legal property title from the government of Ecuador. They really didn’t understand it very well since they had lived there for centuries. Why did they need a piece of paper? The answer was that there’s oil and and gold under that land. I’m not sure who gained more by my time in the Peace Corps. I believe it was me. I learned a lot about myself and the world, and I got my compass straight.

Finally in January 1980 my time was up and I needed to go home. In 1980 unemployment was double digits in Massachusetts. There was no worthwhile work. I moved to Long Island because I got offered a job teaching agriculture at a middle school. It was there that I met my wife and got married. Long Island was too congested so we moved to Western New Jersey. I tried teaching agriculture in high school again but I just wanted to get out of school. I’d been in a classroom too long. I fell back on previously learned skills and starting working as a carpenter.

Carpentry was good. I created new living spaces for people but I had a very minimal effect on society. We were successful but I still needed more. Every week on garbage day I would see perfectly good bicycles being thrown out, usually because they were the wrong color or the wrong size. When I was in the Peace Corps living in the town of Sucúa, Morona-Santiago, Ecuador, only one person in town had a bicycle. Everyone else walked everywhere they went all the time. I started thinking about all of these good bicycles being thrown into the trash for no reason and how they could revolutionize Sucúa. That was the impetus to start Pedals for Progress.

When there is a migration of people for economic reasons the people who leave are the best and brightest. That makes it almost impossible for the society the people are leaving to be successful. There had to be a way to help people stay in their own community. The answer was they needed to have hope of a brighter future and a path to get there. From my time in Ecuador I realized that the problem in the developing world was not always a lack of work but rather a way to get to work. The primary goal in starting Pedals for Progress was to give people in the developing world the ability to stay in their hometown with their family and have the hope for a better future. There is no hope for the future without food on the table.

All of Central America cannot move to the United States, just as all of West Africa cannot move to Europe. We just cannot absorb all those people. Therefore it is crucial that we find a way to build these developing societies so those individuals see a path to success. A sad truth of adulthood is that you need to go to work. Children need to go to school. People need to go places to be successful. Yet when I started this organization in 1991 almost half of the world walked everywhere they went. Mankind’s greatest invention, the wheel, had not been introduced into those people’s lives.

By 1993 I quit my job as a carpenter and dedicated myself full-time to collecting as many bicycles I could to help as many communities as I could. I quickly realized that I would not be able to grow Pedals for Progress big enough to be able to meet goals I’ve set for myself. That’s when I decided to publish my business plan and try to get other people to pick up my goals and move them forward. I did not want them to join Pedals for Progress but rather create independent sister organizations in every major city, and every developed country to pursue the goal of introducing the wheel to everybody on the planet. I offered to consult with any of the groups for free to help them get started. There are now over 70 groups in at least a dozen countries collecting bicycles as charitable items and shipping them to developing nations. While Pedals for Progress has shipped a mere 156,000 bicycles, our sister organizations, some of which I am in close contact with and others that I have no contact with, combined have matched our total.

In 1999 we branched out and began collecting sewing machines. While a bicycle allows an adult to go to work, a sewing machine is a job in a box. Shipping bikes was easy because in every town in every country of the world there are mechanics who can fix a bicycle. The bicycle is a product of the 1800s; for the most part they are just not that complicated. On the other hand, if a sewing machine needs repair, it takes a special individual. We started the sewing machine business very slowly because we had to learn not only how to collect them, but how to get them repaired, and we had to learn a new way to ship. We put sewing machines in many of our bicycle containers but there are many programs which we have started around the world that have no interest in bikes and really want just sewing machines. By the time you’re reading this in November we will have shipped close to 5000 sewing machines and I have already recruited one group in the United Kingdom to ship sewing machines to the developing world.

As a famous frog once said, “It ain’t easy being green.” Indeed without the support of my family I could have never been successful. I have won a lot of awards, but I only applied to win the cash prize. My primary goal is to raise money to support this organization and when you win an award they give you money. We get $10 for every bike we collect but it is not enough; the complete cost is close to $50 per bike. It is you, the supporters of Pedals for Progress, who keep P4P continuing on its mission. This year we’ve shipped 34 tons of steel to South America, Central America, Africa, Eastern Europe, and Southeast Asia. If I wanted to make one shipment I could get it donated, but when I made 8 to 10 shipments per year I had to become a customer of the shipping lines and needed to assume those costs.

An even greater cost is the cost of running a trucking company in New Jersey—not only the cost of sending out trucks and picking up bikes but also the added expenses of having an office to manage it all, enough insurance policies to float the Titanic, and all of the rigorous reporting required by the states of New Jersey, New York, Connecticut and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. This is an expensive place to be in business and in order to keep those bicycles and sewing machine flowing, we need to raise funds to pay those expenses. Folks, that’s where you come in—we cannot do it without you.

In communities like Rivas, Nicaragua, where we’ve shipped more than 20,000 bicycles, children can get to school and adults can comfortably commute to work and market. In Rivas, America represents Kennedy’s shining city on the top of the hill. The people of Rivas are so deeply appreciative of the aid they have received to allow them to stay in their own hometown, be successful, and have hope for the future, despite the troubled political times in Nicaragua.

We have only one planet to live on, and it is beset with terrible danger due to global warming. We need our neighbors to work together with us to save this planet for all of us. Developing nations know the risks global warming presents. We need to encourage them to move towards bicycle societies for local trips. We need to help them in that effort by supplying them with the ability to be successful at home. We need them as much as they need us. As people go to work they will start buying products and they can become our future customers. The world today is a very small place and we need to work together to keep it safe, to lift children out of poverty, and encourage adults towards gainful employment for the benefit of their family.

Please continue supporting our organization. We are making a positive change in the world. Although we are a drop in a very big bucket, we are doing the best we can. Thank you.



David Schweidenback

bicycles, InGear - The Newsletter of P4P, Vietnam

Report from Vietnam, Fall 2018

By Nguyen Hanh
Fall 2018 InGear


Nhi Cao, 10 years old, was born into a poor family with five children in a village in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam. The family lives in a dilapidated house that was built in 2008 with the help of generous donors. Her father, 48 years old, has been working in construction for more than ten years, and can make only irregular visits home from his far-away construction sites. Her mother, 42 years old, earns income for the family with all kinds of work, including selling lottery tickets. Though she is the youngest child, Nhi helps her mother with the house work, and earns a little income by knitting, feeding chickens, and harvesting vegetables after school.

Two of Nhi’s sisters are already out of school after they completed their secondary education, but are still struggling with finding vocational training programs. Most of the time, Nhi and her sister and brother walked more than 2 miles to school while her mother also walked around 25 miles per day selling lottery tickets, earning $10–$15. Nhi’s mom usually works from dawn to dusk but is still unable to meet the family’s expenses. In early 2018 the mother was provided with a micro-loan from The Dariu Foundation (TDF) to invest in raising 100 chickens with the hope of earning some profit and enabling her to afford a new bike by the end of the year.

In June 2018, The Dariu Foundation received a container of bikes from Pedals for Progress (P4P) and Nhi was among the eligible recipients. After TDF refurbished the bike, they sold it to Nhi in June 2018. TDF also used some spare parts from the P4P container to fix Nhi’s old bike.

Nhi and her brother share the P4P bike to ride to school in the morning. The third child uses the repaired bike to ride to school in the afternoon. Nhi’s mother uses the old bike in the morning and the P4P bike in the afternoon, and as a result has nearly doubled her income from her lottery ticket sales.

At the end of August, her mother got a second loan of $400 from Dariu, which, together with the profit of $230 from selling the chickens, she invested in raising a cow. She expects that she could earn $800 from this business by end of 2019, along with an annual profit of around $2,400 from selling lottery tickets. This money should help her repair the house and invest in her children’s education.

In July 2018, Nhi joined Dariu’s coding skill training program (Scratch) for secondary students. She completed a project at the end of the training course, and entered her project in Dariu’s competition among primary students. Unexpectedly, Nhi was among the top ten project winners of Dariu Scratch Summer Camp 2018.

Nhi studies hard and is one of the best students in the class. “Thank you Dariu for giving me such a beautiful and good bicycle. It not only helps me to ride to school but also my mom in her business,” said Nhi. Her mother explained, “I don’t have to use the broken old bike all the time. I am very grateful. I hope in the future my children can continue their education and that Nhi can achieve her dream of becoming a doctor”.

bicycles, Kosovo

July 2018: Kosovo #1 Arrival Report

By Kushtrim Gojani

Dear David,

Hope you are well.


Many many apologies for this late reply. The reason I am writing this late is due to a ton of work dealing with bicycles to bring them to good use. The container honestly caught me a little off guard. I knew it would be a container with 450 bicycles but I guess I did not prepare for the work required to assemble them. I am aware of the challenge and sacrifice it took P4P to establish this project in Kosovo, and I am very thankful. This very fact gave me extra pressure, because I don’t want to let you down and I want to make the GoBike & P4P partnership successful.

I managed to clear the container on 11 July 2018 after only 2 nights at customs. This was my first import experience with Kosovo customs, and we had a few problems that I hope we can handle better in the future.

We are a little cash poor, so I could not hire extra mechanics for the bicycles. I have been working intensively myself with the support of friends and family to prepare the bicycles (many of us were inexperienced) and this kept me away from all office work. Apologies once again for responding late.

Now some good news 😃

From the moment we unloaded the container we were very pleased with the reaction of the people here. They appreciate the quality of the bicycles and are eager to buy them. They are quite surprised to see that we brought American bicycles to Kosovo, and they are happy to find bikes that vary from quite inexpensive to professional quality, so there is something for everyone! So far, we see quite a lot of interest in children’s bikes.

The location of the GoBike warehouse is very strategic. It is in the main road between the capital Prishtina and a famous city in north Kosovo called Mitrovica, so people who travel this road and families who live nearby are already stopping by our shop.

We managed to sell 25 bicycles so far, but we are having some overhead. We gave top priority to security so we installed cameras and hired a guard to look after the bicycles during the night.

I will get back to you again once we manage to prepare all the bicycles (another 250 to go) and I will keep you informed about GoBike news and events.

Here is our facebook page.

Thank you ever so much.

All the best,
Kushtrim

bicycles, Vietnam

Report from The Dariu Foundation, Vietnam, June 2018

By Hanh Nguyen (General Manager of The Dariu Foundation, Vietnam)


The Dariu Foundation (TDF) was established in 2002 in Switzerland with its mission to empower low-income families with microfinance and education. Over the past 15 years, we have advanced the mission objectives by providing access to affordable and readily available microfinance services to thousands of rural low-income women, who are considered as unbankable, in Vietnam and Myanmar. Since 2007, we have provided more than 14,000 scholarships, as well as notebooks, school books, pens, uniforms, rice and bicycles to the disadvantaged and neediest students among the poorest families in the rural areas to prevent them from dropping out of schools at an early age.

We have had fruitful cooperation with international partners, of which Pedals for Progress (P4P) is the organization that has shipped us the most bikes. So far, three containers of bikes and sewing machines have been donated, benefiting around 1,500 families in the rural areas.

We are looking forward to a strong partnership so TDF and P4P can go further with comprehensive social projects in Vietnam.

Case Study in Vietnam

Binh Nguyen was born into a poor family in the mountainous district of Dong Nai province. He is now a secondary-school student, grade 6. One year ago, because of a kidney problem, his mom’s health went bad, and all housework was put on his shoulders and his dad’s. Besides doing all the housework, he got a part-time job as a fruit deliverer to earn some income for the family.

Every morning, Binh had to wake up early, preparing breakfast for his mom and two sisters before he took a four kilometer (2.5 mile) walk to school. When the kids were small, the dad took them to school, but now they have to walk. The family is too poor to afford a bicycle, so two kids had to walk by themselves. After school, Binh again walks home to help his dad harvest fruit, and to do the cooking and other housework. “I was sick and unable to do any job, even a little housework. So Binh has to do all the housework. He is a hard-working and good son. This year he was awarded the best-student prize. I am so proud of him,” said his mom.

In June 2018, he is among 500 students to receive scholarships of bikes donated by P4P via The Dariu Foundation in Vietnam. “I am very happy with my first bike. Now I can take my sister to school with me. And we no longer have to walk to school,” said Binh.

Kenya, Sewing Partners

Note from Kenya, 21 June 2018

Hello David,


Kind greetings. This is to inform you that today the machines arrived at our project site. Thank you very much.

It took some time as the port was congested. Also the lack of preshipment inspection cost some delays.

Otherwise the machines are of great quality and excitement is all over the community with this great support.

I hereby send today’s reception images as we wait to embark on our program and our reporting on it.

Pass our sincere appreciation for the hands and sweat that went into this magnificent work. We are humbled.

Tom Ademba
Aid the Needy
Kenya

Cameroon, Sewing Partners

Report from Cameroon, Spring 2018

By Orock Eyong
Spring 2018

United Action for Children and Sewing Peace are implementing a One-Girl-One-Sewing-Machine project in the Buea and Mamfe communities. The project aims at promoting entrepreneurial skills to enable young girls and women to create employment. The program targets young girls and women who are just starting as well as those already established in the tailoring business.

The zigzag sewing machine and other accessories sent by SP are very useful as they give the women experience in specialized sewing with different stitches. Some of the women have added new services because of the zigzag machine. The machine is a great favorite because it allows the women to do quick specialized tailoring while avoiding travel to use other machines that are costly and unreliable.

The stories from our beneficiaries are bitter–sweet. Though they earn a living from tailoring, they missed out on life experiences such as interacting with peers, being taken care of, and education. Such is the plight of many young girls from vulnerable families. They are forced to go into the labour market earlier in life to make ends meet. Since formal education is too costly for them, increasing accessibility to vocational skills is a good alternative. Through coaching, mentoring, and other training they can learn skills such as book keeping, costing and pricing, business planning, health and development.

UAC is excited and proud to bring these stories of the beneficiaries of the project.

Juliet Mungwa

My name is Juliet Mungwa and I am 31 years old. I dropped out of school from senior two because my parents didn’t have enough funds to keep me in school. Fortunately I had acquired the tailoring skill from a vocational institute. I was able to borrow a sewing machine from one of our family friends and I started tailoring. I have been tailoring for four years now. My clients, adult women and younger boys. I sew skirts, dresses, blouses and shorts. I earned between 25,000 FCFA (Central African CFA Franc) to 75,000 FCFA a month (U.S. $44 to U.S. $133). Thanks to two additional machines from SP, I am now between 50,000 FCFA and 100,000 FCFA (U.S. $89–$178). From this I am able to save 10,000 FCFA (U.S. $18) for myself, and I spend the rest on taking care of my 3 siblings since my mother cannot afford to take care of the family.

Loveline Aben

I am a 27-year-old single mother of five. Before the UAC/SP project I did not have enough money to buy the machines I needed to meet the demands of my customers. Because of donated machines from SP, I was able to increase the number of machines in my shop and keep up with demand. Thanks to the new machines, my income has increased and I am able to expand my shop and easily pay for food, health care, and the education of my children. I also reinvest part of my profits into the business to acquire working material. I get my orders from parents who bring the uniforms of their children. The photo shows some of the uniforms I tailored for a primary school.

My plan for the future is to get tenders from at least 3 schools to make uniforms. In that way I will have a stable clientele. I also want to get a new location in the trading centre where I can station my business to attract more clients. I hope to get some training in business planning, where my knowledge is limited. I am so grateful for the support given to us through the One-Girl-One-Sewing-Machine project.

Margaret Oyere

I am 35 years old and the mother of five children living in Bolifamba village community. After I completed my training, my husband, who is a subsistence farmer, bought me a manual sewing machine, which enabled me to establish a business as a seamstress in our community. I can now manage to work independently and save my own personal income instead of relying on my husband for daily and other needs. I am now able to assist my husband in the education of our children and taking care of their health.

Thanks to the donation of an electric sewing machine from SP through UAC, I can now promptly tailor modern dresses and all types of local casual/occasional wear for women and children. The machine has helped to boost my earnings and image before my customers. I now earn U.S. $35 per day without strain as compared to $25 before the new machine from SP. I am becoming a self-reliant, independent income earner.

P4P would like to thank the Clif Bar Family Foundation for their continuing support, that support allowed P4P to pay for the shipping costs of the first shipment of bicycles for our new program in Cameroon.

bicycles, Kosovo

New Partner: GoBike Kosovo

By Kushtrim Gojani
Spring 2018

GoBike LLC is located in Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, Europe’s youngest country. Kosovo is a landlocked country bordering Albania, Montenegro, Serbia and Macedonia. Kosovo owes its independence largely to U.S., U.K. and other European partners who intervened in 1999 to stop ethnic cleansing of the Kosovo Albanian majority by the policies of Slobodan Milosevic, the President of ex-Yugoslavia. NATO troops are still present in Kosovo, and the U.S. Army has a base in Kosovo, Camp Bondsteel, which can hold up to 7000 soldiers.


The partnership between Kosovo and the U.S. is strategic. Kosovars are extremely grateful towards the U.S. for its continued support, and Kosovar Albanians (more than 90% of Kosovo’s population) tend to be very friendly towards the U.S. This gratitude is visible across Kosovo’s cities, but most notably in Pristina, where one can walk down Bill Clinton Boulevard, turn onto George Bush Street, and end up in Madeleine Albright Hall.

Like all post-war countries, Kosovo faces many political, economic, environmental and social challenges. Although it has the youngest population in Europe (more than 60% are below 25 years old), the unemployment rate remains at 30%, and at around 60% for youth and women. Kosovo is entirely reliant on energy produced from lignite, which is extremely polluting and a perennial health hazard. Post-war development and the corruption associated with it have taken a negative toll on the environment; quality of air, water and soil; increased congestion in cities; and deforestation in rural areas. Kosovo’s capital is often ranked one of the most polluted cities on earth.

In response to these problems, I established GoBike LLC in November 2017 with the mission to promote cycling and bicycle use in Kosovo, reduce transport-related carbon footprint, and improve Kosovo cyclists’ well-being. The vision of GoBike is a Kosovo society with an improved quality of life and environment. Partnering with Pedals for Progress has been crucial to getting this start-up business going.

GoBike aims to stimulate bicycle use, increase the number of cyclists in the city and thus reduce pollution from traffic, and make cycling in Kosovo safer and enjoyable for all. We seek to identify, support, and promote all those who use bicycles as a main mode of transportation, and to lobby for improvements of urban infrastructure for cycling.

GoBike strives to be the number one bicycle provider in Kosovo, with specialized bike shops for rentals, sales, and maintenance. Our business will focus on the organization and promotion of cycling events (excursions, festivals, cycling clubs, etc.) and education of citizens on the importance of bicycle use. This, indirectly, will affect the greater demand for bicycle rental and sale services. In the future, GoBike plans to establish the very first public bicycle rental system, initially in the capital, with the hope of expanding to other cities.

GoBike’s chosen area of focus is not only important in and of itself, but it also has multiple benefits to the environment, contributes to health, and supports Kosovo’s economy and tourism. Kosovars brand themselves as “The Young Europeans”. Hopefully, Pristina and other Kosovo cities will have the cycling infrastructure and attitude towards bikes as other European cities like Copenhagen, Amsterdam, and London.

Pedals for Progress, thank you ever so much for your contribution and support. I look forward to reporting on the contribution our joint endeavor is making to address Kosovo’s environmental and economic challenges.


Kosovo
Population: 1,920,079 (2017 est.)
Area: 10,908 sq km (slightly larger than Delaware)
GDP per capita: $12,003 (2017 est.)

Collectors

New Collection Partner: Habitat for Humanity, Warren County, New Jersey

Pedals for Progress is proud to announce a unique new collection partner: Habitat for Humanity of Warren County New Jersey. The partnership is due to Daryl Detrick of the computer science faculty at Warren Hills Regional High School (WH) in Warren, New Jersey. Daryl is also director of the WH Chess Club. He and his students have been volunteering at both Habitat for Humanity and Pedals for Progress for the last few years.


For the past several years, the Chess Club has gotten a number of bicycles from Habitat for Humanity for their annual Pedals for Progress bicycle collection. Habitat for Humanity has been collecting more bicycles than they can sell. P4P’s challenge is to get a minimum $10 donation with each bicycle and sewing machine; this donation is a fundamental part of our business model. To pick up a bicycle or sewing machine, prepare it for shipping, truck it to the warehouse, and pack it away in the warehouse so that is ready to be shipped, we spend an average of $20. Every time someone donates a bicycle or sewing machine with $10 we still need to independently raise another $10. We refuse a lot of bikes that don’t come with money — it is better to collect perhaps fewer and stay in business than collect a whole bunch and be bankrupt.

In 2018 Daryl got into a conversation with the Habitat county director Ben Eskow. Daryl mentioned that he might have to take fewer bikes because he was having trouble raising the $10 per bike that Pedals for Progress needs just stay in business.

Ben met with his staff and board at Habitat for Humanity. They were keenly aware that they were receiving many many more bicycles and sewing machines than their resale store could possibly use. Habitat for Humanity also has some discretionary funding that they can use for international programs. The board of Habitat for Humanity of Washington County decided that they would contribute the $10 per bike and sewing machine to Pedals for Progress and Sewing Peace. Therefore P4P/SP will now be able to pick up their extra bikes and sewing machines on a regular basis.

This is a wonderful collaboration between two institutions searching for a way to help the poor have a better life. Pedals for Progress has a new source of bicycles, which we hope may produce up to 250 bikes this first year. From the perspective of Habitat for Humanity, they have a volume problem and they have found a way to solve it within their mandate by partnering with Pedals for Progress and Sewing Peace. Win-win for the betterment of all.

Sewing Partners, Uganda

Progress and Peace in Uganda

By Patricia Hamill
Spring 2018

In July of 2017, Sewing Peace sent 73 refurbished sewing machines to the Mityana Open Troop Foundation (MOTF) & Vocational Project for their tailoring and designing workshops. The relationship with MOTF is a promising one and steadily growing. After the delivery, we were soon notified that these machines were put right to use and helped a number of participants earn their certificates of completion in the two-year program. Start-up machines were presented to graduates so they could move on to business ownership or employment in tailoring and sewing.

Participants, predominantly young men and women between 13 and 25 years old, are often those who have been orphaned young and have no family to depend on or those whose families cannot afford their education. Some teenagers are already parents themselves. Lack of job skills is inevitably a consequence of these factors as they have faced severe financial and social boundaries that prevent them from becoming independent earners. But with the continued availability of the vocational workshops and machines, the success rate grows and more of these people can reverse or mend their monetary dilemmas.

The vocational program does offer other courses such as hairdressing and hair weaves, carpentry and joinery, auto mechanics, agriculture, and animal husbandry, but the sewing courses are especially in demand. In July, the ratio of machines to people was 1:4, sometimes 1:5. With the additional machines, the current ratio of machine to participant in the workshops is now 1:3. According to Mathew Yawe, the Executive Director of Mityana Open Troop Foundation & Vocation Project and the country representative for Pedals For Progress/Sewing Peace in Uganda, a recent graduation ceremony that included the presentation of the sewing machines to the trainees who had completed their program “enticed and attracted more trainees from all the surrounding areas and they also brought in their children to study.” Many hope to join and to graduate with “nice sewing machines from [the] project.” The sewing department, last year, had a population of 30 trainees; this year, there was an increase to 45.

The sewing program has set up a shop in their town from which they sell some of the machines. The income enables them to pay the instructors and meet the shipping and customs costs.

One of the graduates of 2017, Resty Masane, put her new sewing machine to work on the veranda of her parents’ home in Nalyankanja, an area about 18km (11 miles) from Mityana. This 20 year old joined the vocational project in 2015. She had completed her “primary seven,” which is the last of seven years of academic study before students move on to six years of secondary schooling, but her parents did not have enough money to send her for this next stage of studies. Her parents are farmers who manage to grow enough for home consumption and have just a little left to sell or trade in order to buy other requirements. In fact, Resty’s parents paid her sewing program fees by bartering beans—a reliable crop in their climate—and maize for her vocational studies. Something of value exchanged for something of value: It’s a win-win arrangement.

Resty’s contracts include making uniforms for a village secondary school and two village primary schools. She earns between 10,000 and 15,000 Ugandan shillings (approximately U.S. $2.65 to $4.00) Since she can make 3–5 uniforms a week and also do repairs for a fee, she has an income that is reliable and a skill that will remain in demand. To add to her success, she now pays school fees for her five siblings. Resty also puts the barter system to good use by providing some uniforms to a sister’s school in lieu of paying fees. Her income also helps defray the cost of medication for her family and enables her to maintain a phone, which of course lets her stay in touch with clients and schools.


Also in 2017, Ereth Nampijja, a 21-year-old woman, graduated after taking a tailoring and fashion design course. She lives in Busunju-Mityana, located 30km (about 19 miles) from Mityana. She had been a good student, moving from primary school to completing her O levels—the exams taken after the first 4 years of secondary school—but her family could not afford to send her for the critical last two years. As a result, she could not sit for the A levels (final exams) or graduate. It was then that she approached MOTF to participate in the vocational program. Two years later, Ereth’s ambition and effort cumulated in a certificate of completion and, with what help her parents could offer, she now has a three-month lease of a space in the market where she can repair or repurpose second-hand clothes to sell from her shop or via mobile vendors who take the goods to the rural villages to sell.

Ereth averages about 7,000 Ugandan shillings (approximately $1.85) per day. This newfound financial independence allows her to rent a room near her shop and provides her with daily meals. Like Resty, she can provide funds for medication and cover school fees for her brothers and sisters. Her goals are to grow her business and to have more room to store her machine and finished products safely from the elements.

As this article was being finalized, we heard from Mathew that the recent shipment of 64 more machines reached MOTF and were being made ready for the next class session. The heavy-duty machines especially pleased him because the orders for school uniforms can also be completed with the institutions’ embroidered emblems and garments made from heavy fabrics can also be made and mended as part of the graduates’ added services offered.

As is to be expected, there are ongoing challenges for the program. These, however, are a result of the progress it has made. This growth in enrollment means that the existing workshop is at maximum capacity and the instructors often have to create shelters outside under the trees where they set up the sewing machines for classes. With the better part of six months of the year bringing substantial rainfall, this makeshift environment is not a viable long-term option. MOTF is, as always, looking to the future and plans to be able to reinvest in and improve their facilities as they continue to sell machines and bicycles from Pedals for Progress. The record of success stories can only continue to expand from here.