Re-Cycle Bikes to Africa, a charity that recycles used bikes and donates them to people in Africa, is looking for a new voluntary co-ordinator on the Isle of Wight.
Merlin Matthews set up Re-Cycle: Bikes to Africa in 1998 to establish a bike reuse project collecting quality bikes from the UK, with the aim of sending them to partner organisations in Africa where local mechanics were trained to refurbish and maintain the bikes.
On the Isle of Wight, Tony Harman set up a local collection scheme to take unwanted bikes from the Island to the charity’s headquarters in Colchester. In 2014, after Tony’s untimely death, Sue Bailey stepped into the voluntary role of coordinating the collection, preparation and delivery of bikes from the Isle of Wight.
Sue said:
“We have taken over 1,500 bikes to Re-Cycle in Colchester, since I took over. For some people living in parts of rural Africa, the average time spent walking to school, work, or collecting water can be four hours a day so it feels like we will have made a significant difference to many people’s lives.
“But now I am looking for someone to pass the baton on to. I feel Re~Cycle Isle of Wight needs someone with fresh energy and ideas to take the reins. We need to find a new storage facility for donated bikes, arrange regular drop off days and find economically viable and sustainable ways to take the bikes to Colchester. Wightlink and Bartletts have given us fantastic support to date, but lots more could be done with a new person looking for new opportunities.”
If you think this sounds like something you could do, email [email protected] and Sue can contact you to explain what the voluntary role involves.
Re-Cycle has been sending bikes to Africa for 25 years and has sent over 130,000 bikes and hundreds of thousands of spare parts. For more information about the charity and its partners in Africa see https://re-cycle.org/our-work/.
Surely the need for such is lessened to make this project not worth while now.
As there can’t be many people left in Africa as they are either here, or awaiting the calm seas to head here, being no longer prepared to wait for charity, but claim it now direct from the source since the mobile phone gives them all the info, directions and contacts they now need, no matter how remote a location they inhabit.
The cycle clips have been replaced in many cases by a stolen Beemer.
IMO give to more deserving nations like India who respect kindness instead of seeing it as weakness.
How many citizens can be left that require cycles in that Continent now?
Looking at the West, I assumed that they had all become ‘victims’ and were all seeking Asylum here or any other land mug enough to believe that ploy?
Likely only need racing cycles as if chased by a Lion, Tiger or even an angry Baboon, a three speed gear model would be of little use.
Sorry about my terrible comments earlier but I forgot to make my medication again and I got very confused.
what about letting people on the island have some i would love a bike can’t afford one
It beats walking to Calais.
virtue signalling do gooders
perhaps you should ask…..if africa is way older than white western nations, why are they so far behind in social and tech advancements
A very good point Joe.
The lovers of such, will say ‘because WE stole their resources’ but we all know if white nations never had utilised the resources, they, as they do in every part of the globe, would never advanced forward, and, unfortunately would have just bred their environment in poverty, overcrowding, and misery, using violence, cruelty and mob rule as they do in every area they choose to settle en masse around the globe today.
NOT coincidence that after years of charity, that they still are the race with outstretched taking hands.
Since mobile phones though they learn how to take at source, no longer need a pop star or Unicef grain lorries.
the point joe is making wilbur, is that the african nations existed before the white western nations did – so how come the white western nations are light years ahead in living standards and societal norms, when they only came into existence hundreds of years, if not more, after the african nations were already there.
Why does the Echo allow outright rascism? If you want a bike get one they are everywhere, dumped. Why begrudge someone eho has to walk miles for water? Why are you all such nasty human beings?
They’re stating the facts in their own way, its called freedom of speech.
Somthing you obviously can’t bear.
exactly old school – these hand wringers don’t like free speech, unless it is their sanctioned free speech.
why don’t they move closer to the water supply – or get the government to spend out on a water pipeline to their town, instead of spending the money on weapons and luxury houses for theirselves.
i spoke with a guy who worked in one african country ..he said he would never donate to these charities, simply because when he was in that country, the locals refused to work, stating that they would just wait for the western charities to show up, who would give them food and other stuff for free.
now they have mobile phones and are simply turning up in the west to get the free handouts.
I believe these donated bikes are actually SOLD to individuals in Africa, they’re not given away free as the article suggests (‘donates them to people in Africa’) which, for me anyway, puts a different light on the whole scheme.
As someone else here in the comments already said, if you have an unwanted bike you could ‘donate’ it free of charge to someone living here on the Island. It would certainly cut down the ‘bike miles’ in sending the bike to Africa to be sold there.
there was a documentary recently that highlighted all these charitable donations to africa, almost always end up in the local markets on sale, rather than handed out for free.
the african market traders are getting all their stock for free from the gulilble, guilt ridden, weak westerners and selling it on at 100% profit to anyone who shows up at their market stall. I have seen the footage of stuff arriving in ghana and being picked over. Those textile mountains of rubbish in ghana is where the locals have dumped what they don’t want and cant sell
Charity ought to begin & STAY at home now.
We have been giving to Africa for years, never ending envelopes from Christian Aid & Oxfam, yet where are all these Oxen? They have been having them for years. Likely been selling them back to Mc D’s otherwise Africa would resemble the Great Plains of N. America by now with the amount sent.
As stated that Continent is NOT the only place to have had hard times, China was starving not so long back, as was India, but Africans are so tribal, so mob rule, that they never have and likely never will form a stable Government unless, as they had, white rule, to ever bring financial stability to fed themselves. A thorn in the side of human progress, and spreading the re-gress IMO to all now
The reason why we need to help Africa is because Western colonialization destroyed numerous stable societies throughout the continent. It might seem that colonialization is over but Western industries continue to do further damage by extracting resources based on deals with the corrupt governments that they support. Charities don’t want your money to buy “oxen” but instead they are funding education because that is the only way to improve the lives of people in the long term. Obviously, African countries are resource rich but a lack of education is stopping people making the best of what is available. Education will also help to overcome corruption and exploitation.
No we don’t – the africans have had hundreds of years, if not more of a head start on the western nations – but why are the western nations so far advanced – you need to answer that question and then you will realise why things are they way they are.
Not sure where you are getting this made up “head start” drivel from islander but you are talking rubbish. The current state of some parts of Africa is a consequence of colonialism and western business (but also Asian these days) interests. The western nations are not “so far advanced” and they only have the same technology that is used in Africa.