by Carol Stadden, Peace Corps Volunteer
Spring 2015 InGear

Greetings from your roving Moldoveneasc Peace Corps volunteer reporter.

It is the middle of winter in Grozesti but that does not stop people from riding their bikes. Many of the roads are impossible to navigate with a bike but the main road, which has been under construction since I arrived, August of 2013, is almost complete! Many of the boys who helped to repair our shipment of bikes were part of the road construction crew. They would ride their new bikes to and from spreading stones and pouring tar this past summer. I know because I saw them on the days that I took a group of younger boys and girls to participate in a different “Hill Challenge” each week. Now that the kids had bikes with gears, they could actually ride their bikes up all the hills that surround our village. You cannot go more than 2k before you hit a steep incline. We crowned a “King and Queen of the Hills”. They were not awarded a polka-dot jersey but instead a bicycle gear pouch and inner tubes—compliments of the P4P shipment we received in June!

Fifteen of the bikes were sold to an enterprising Moldovan who will use them to improve tourism in the country. He helps pensioners rent out their vacant homes. He hopes the bikes will add more interest for potential tourists if they are placed at some of these “Hai la Tara” rentals.

With our shipment of 475 bicycles we also received about 70 sewing machines. All but 10 were distributed throughout the community. These 10 were earmarked for a sewing class at the high school. I recently helped the French professor write a grant for equipment to create a modern sewing classroom. We won the grant and will soon have sewing tables, fabric and thread, storage bins, mannequin, excellent lighting, a laptop, printer/scanner, and projector and screen. The class has started and the children are very excited. We were pleased to find that 6 boys were eager to take the class stating that they would like to design clothes someday. We will not only teach sewing and design techniques but entrepreneurial training as well. We want to give choices to the children who will not study at university after graduation. With the skills they learn in the sewing class they could possibly start their own business!

Migration is a huge problem for this country; we want to see the youth stay in Moldova. With the completion of the road this summer, I expect to see even more bikes out and about than ever before. So many people ride bikes in our village now that a sign was erected to warn incoming traffic. Isn’t it great! Bun Ziua!

by Carol Stadden, Peace Corps Volunteer
InGear Fall 2014

Walking down the street, strangers stop me and ask when the bikes will arrive. They thank me, sometimes with a hug or even a kiss on the hand. Everyone hopes to buy at least one bike and they are eager for them to come. The school basement has been cleared and new locks have been purchased for the doors as we await our “Christmas in June”. Something like this doesn’t happen every day in a small village like Grozesti!

The Diamond Challenge team made headlines in America. Grozesti proudly sent the winning Moldovan team of young entrepreneurs to compete in the National Diamond Challenge competition at the University of Delaware the end of April. Their winning business concept was to open a bicycle repair/rental business using the bikes from P4P to start their venture. Tudor and Tamara got to spend their first day in the US with David, president of P4P! He took them on a scenic tour of High Bridge and to see where the bikes are loaded into crates. David taught them the easiest way to price the bikes once they arrive in Moldova, “Close your eyes and feel the weight of the bike; the lighter it feels, the more expensive it is”. Tudor and Tamara spent the night at David’s home and both said they would never forget his wife’s pancakes! In the morning they were whisked off to Delaware for a tour of the college campus and the following day the team took third place in the competition! Even though they did not win, they gained valuable knowledge about starting a business and they had a trip of a lifetime; it was a dream that came true for them.

In early May flyers were posted in our village and neighboring villages describing P4P and the shipment of bikes and sewing machines. Raffle tickets were sold to give away one free bike in order to generate funds and more excitement–if that was even possible!

We sold over 1,000 tickets. When the truck pulled up on June 12th, young and old gathered at the school to help unload the crate and to get a good look at its contents. Before the school’s summer break I spoke to each of the senior classes to find my crew of mechanics and sales people. My inventory team arrived and we began the long process of numbering and cataloging each bike. Pricing came later. No one can believe how beautiful the bikes are or that they are “used”.

My team of 12 mechanics worked like a well oiled machine. We had all the bikes repaired in two days! Tickets were sold in advance and the first five winners were waiting patiently with a stream of onlookers behind them. Each new bike owner was interviewed so in the future we will be able to monitor the usefulness of the P4P program and help P4P determine if it is achieving its mission goals. The entire container of bikes, which seemed enormous when it first arrived, completely disappeared over the weekend.

Everyone left happy. 50 bikes were purchased by an innovative entrepreneur who will rent the bikes to tourists who stay in his network of rental homes (Hai la tara). They are beautiful vacant homes dotted throughout Moldova belonging to grannies on a pension. This money supplements their meager incomes.

I am now working with a young woman who wants to help stem the tide of human trafficking in Moldova by teaching the young girls (and boys) in our village to sew. She will teach classes at the school and open a small shop. Her shop will provide needed jobs making it unnecessary to migrate in order to find work! So this is the summer when Grozesti became “the village where everyone rides a bike”.

June 2014

We love to hear from people whose lives have been touched by P4P and our partners. We have been contacted by a woman who is connected with the Peace Corps and is in the process of campaigning for P4P to come to Grozesti, Moldova. If all goes well, we will ship to them in early spring. Just one container of bikes can change the lives of people in this small isolated town. Here is her message:

“My name is Carol Stadden. I am a retired baker serving as a Peace Corps volunteer for two years in a small Moldovan village in Eastern Europe called Grozesti. Moldova is a country approximately the size of Pennsylvania and is considered the poorest in Europe. Peace Corp’s mission is to promote world peace and friendship with a commitment to improving the quality of life in each host country. I am in the Small Enterprise Development program. When I first arrived at [the] site, I heard there was a village where everyone rode a bike. How incredible! In 2005, a Peace Corps volunteer, working with P4P, had arranged for 500 bikes to be shipped to his village of Pelenia. I talked to the mayor of my village and she was eager to give Grozesti the same opportunity.

“Many people in the village own bikes, but they are extremely old and heavy one-speed models unsuitable for navigating the rocky, hilly, unpaved roads of Grozesti. Because of P4P, the communi ty will not only be able to purchase sturdy, quality bikes for an extremely affordable price but the bikes will enable farmers to get to and from their fields more easily and children to ride to and from school–sometimes as far as 5km. I hope to work with a group of high-school students to catalogue, repair, and sell the bikes so they can learn valuable business and employment skills. There is also the possibility that a community member will step forward to start a small bicycle parts/repair shop. Any surplus funds from this project would be used to assist them.

“I am an avid cyclist back home and the first thing I did once I arrived in Moldova was to buy a bicycle. This is the perfect way for me to share my enthusiasm for cycling while promoting small business. These bikes are generating so much excitement in the village, I believe there may be a bicycle club in Grozesti’s future! To learn more about Grozesti, please go to grozesti.weebly.com. One of my first projects was to create this website as a means of promoting the village and assist me in integration.”

by Andrei Rusanovschi
Fall 2005 InGear

He started repairing old Soviet bikes in his apartment to earn money for food. He built up his skill of talent and sweat. Bikes have changed his way of life and he changed the way bikes run across Stefan Voda and, ultimately, across Moldova.

Stefan Voda is a small city, situated not far from the Black Sea, and not too far from the capital of the Republic of Moldova, Chisinau, but far enough to have its unique salt and quietness.

Since ’91, after the fall of Soviet Union, many aspects of Moldova’s infrastructure were ruined, including the roads and public services.

Stefan Voda’s public transport system has never been petted; by anybody. The system has simply never existed. That is why bikes play such an important role in connecting the so-called private sector with the center of the town.

In Stefan Voda the bike shop is in the building of the Maria Biesu School of Arts. Walking down the steps to the shop one senses little by little the smell of rubber. The smell has already became characteristic and is readily associated with bikes — no other place in Stefan Voda has that many and such a big variety of them. Everyone knows “if you want good bikes at good prices, go the store in the basement.”

The bike shop, once a messy and unorganized place, now looks like it found a master. The room that once was too small to house two hundred bikes is now transformed into a neat bike store and a fitting shop, accommodating four hundred plus bikes of different sizes, models and function.

When you enter the shop you see an energetic guy, always busy with fitting the bikes and making the place better. He even makes his own bike stands, inventing modifications, building bikes virtually from nothing. In comparison, it is quite simple to prep bikes in such good condition as those from Pedals for Progress.

To a big extent, it is due to Valeriu that the Moldova #3 project became possible, or at least potentially viable, says Vitalie Rusanovschi, director of Center Rural21, the NGO that administers the project in Moldova.

Valeriu started repairing bikes in his small one-bedroom apartment. “I never thought I would deal with bicycles on the professional level,” says Valeriu. “I just liked riding them when I was little. And, as a kid, I always liked to see what’s inside.”

After the Army I had to choose what direction to take, says Valeriu. I decided to go further with my education and studied automobiles. While studying in Chisinau, fate brought me together with a bike service center. This is when I began to study the subtleties of bike mechanics.

Now he works with Center Rural21, the regional NGO promoting democracy, healthy life style and sustainable development. The Pedals for Progress project is running in Moldova for the third time. The previous two shipments made essential improvements to the public transport infrastructure. It is readily visible when coming to the town.

“I could instantly see that Stefan Voda is now much better equipped with bikes than ever before,” says Mark Skelton, the Peace Corps Volunteer in Moldova who was the first to contact Pedals for Progress in 2002, arranging for the first shipment of bikes from the USA. Mark visited Stefan Voda during the second week of August 2005. It had been two years since he finished his duty in Moldova with Peace Corps.

“I am impressed how Valeriu has organized his workplace,” says Mark. “It is neat and well structured, and it seems he improves it every second,” says Mark after a half-day visit to the bike store.

“The best gratitude for me would be the bike I fit to never come back for repair,” says Valeriu. “I will just welcome them at least once a year for maintenance work.”

The Pedals for Progress project proved to be sustainable and a long-lasting relationship, and with Valeriu Soloviov responsible for the fitting process, we will fill Moldova up with reliable, environment-friendly means of transport — bicycles, said Center Rural21 director, Vitalie Rusanovschi.

by Darren Enterline, Peace Corps Volunteer
Fall 2009 InGear

Few people outside of Europe have ever heard of the Republic of Moldova. What those few usually do know is that the former Soviet Republic has the dubious distinction of consistently being the poorest nation in Europe. While many of the former Soviet-controlled states have thrived as independent democracies, Moldova has never been able to progress out of the political chaos of the early 1990s and the economic crises that followed. In 2008 the United Nations Human Development Report ranked Moldova 113th out of 179 nations, between Mongolia and Vietnam.

The failure of the Moldovan government to transition from a communist Soviet Republic to an independent capitalist democracy means that much of the population currently lives in poverty. While the capital, Chisinau, and larger cities have recently shown signs of economic recovery, the countryside still suffers greatly. The rural village where Pedals for Progress’s partner organization is located is no exception. Pelinia, never a wealthy village, once supported industries such as brick manufacturing and food canning until the collapse of the Soviet Union. The ensuing privatization of state industries brought an end to those enterprises that couldn’t survive the new market economy. Today, most villagers in Pelinia support themselves by farming the small plots of land given to them after the collective Soviet farms were privatized in 1996. Many depend solely on these plots, approximately 4 to 10 acres, for both their food and income. Oftentimes, these plots are several kilometers outside the village forcing villagers to use valuable time travelling to and from their land. To make matters worse, the roads used to reach the plots are unpaved and deeply rutted, making it slow going for the ancient cars and horse carts that use them.

Because so many people are involved in small-scale, low-income farming, the local government is chronically underfunded and unable to provide even the most basic services. Few houses have running water, making it necessary for many to walk to public wells to retrieve their water. Gas is also only available to a few households and is too expensive for many to use. Those that can’t afford to buy wood or coal must travel outside the village to collect their own wood in order to heat their homes during the winter. Although Pelinia is a large village of over 8000 inhabitants, it is too small to offer public transportation. Villagers must provide their own means to travel to stores, markets and schools on roads that are not much better than the ones outside of the village. Basically, the villagers of Pelinia endure the same difficulties that impoverished people all over the world endure.

While these hardships are debilitating, they are not impossible to overcome and Pedals for Progress offers one of the best ways to assist the villagers of Pelinia. Consult-Nord, a local Moldovan NGO established to promote local economic development in Pelinia, saw the potential results that Pedals for Progress’s bicycles could provide and requested to become a partner. Consult-Nord started selling bicycles this winter after receiving a shipment in late December of last year. The good quality, affordable bicycles now available at a shop set up by Consult-Nord offer numerous opportunities to villagers that otherwise would be inaccessible to them. With a bicycle, farmers can efficiently travel to their fields and more easily transport their crops and tools. Villagers can collect water and firewood with less effort. Students can arrive at school with more energy and villagers can independently travel throughout the village. A great example of how bicycles can help the villagers of Pelinia comes from Constant Surcanu. He is a 53-year-old farmer who regularly travels outside the village to work on his land. He bought a bicycle so he can reach his fields with more time to spare and so that he can also visit his relatives living throughout the village. He told us that he especially appreciates his bicycle’s wide, sturdy tires that can handle the demanding village roads. Another satisfied customer is Oleg Cerban. He is a 13-year-old student at the local middle school who bought a mountain bike so he could use it to get to school, to go on errands around the village for his family, and, of course, to visit his friends. These two examples show a few ways how bicycles can help the people of Pelinia. Simply put, bicycles in Pelinia provide what they provide to people all over the developing world, a simple means to independently better their lives.