Bikes Without Borders
OBJECTIVE
Since 2015, the Bikes Without Borders Foundation has been developing the Bicycles for Education Project in Senegal. The aim of the project is:
to use bicycles to facilitate children and young people's access to education.
The 180 euros is the cost of adding a new bicycle to a school's fleet. This means that it includes, in addition to the cost of the raw material of the bicycle, all the management costs so that a student can finally use it (transport, assembly in Senegal, storage
in the factory, spare parts, training, coordination with the schools, registration, parking, repair workshop, diffusion costs...). This would be a bit the distribution scheme in % of the costs.
BENEFITS
With the implementation of the project its beneficiaries obtain the following results:
- Absenteeism is reduced.
- Students arrive to class on time.
- Students are less tired. (1)
- School performance is improved. (2)
(1) Energy consumption is five times lower on a bicycle than on foot.
(2) In 2017, the Lycée de Palmarin saw the highest number of students passing the BAC (university access exam) in the entire Fatick region. (57% of students passed compared to the national average of 31%.)
DESCRIPTION
The project involves:
- Delivering bicycles to secondary schools in Senegal, for the students who live furthest away and are the best in each class.
- Setting up a bicycle workshop in each school.
- Building a parking area for the bicycles.
IMPLEMENTATION
For the first step, the workshop and parking area are built. The bikes are then delivered to the school, which distributes them to the pupils who live furthest away from the school and to those that have the earned the best results on their evaluations.
The families pay an annual fee of 10,000 CFA (€15) to cover the costs of the repair workshop, the mechanic's salary, and the spare parts.
All of the following are involved in the implementation of the project:
- The team in charge of the Senegalese institute
- The students, their families, and the community as a whole
- The sponsors
- The Bikes Without Borders Foundation
