Hello Barrett, thanks for your email. 

Here’s an off-the-cuff reply, and let’s brainstorm further. 

First, we have no affiliate in Austin.  You could check with Bikes Not Bombs, a Boston-based non-profit.  I believe they have contacts in Austin.  Or check with Robin Stallings, an old friend and most recently executive director of the Texas Bicycle Coalition (headquartered in Austin).  Robin and I served on a board together in the late 1980s, providing the non-profit status for Bikes Not Bombs, and he may retain some of those local contacts.   

Bikes for the World does have volunteers and potential affiliates across the mid-Atlantic and mid-West regions, but things are still fairly centralized here in the greater Washington DC area.

Re distribution of your materials, BNB may be a better partner for that, especially in Ghana, as the international program is headed by a former Peace Corps volunteer in Ghana.  We’d be glad to include materials in a container, or provide addresses for African partners, but currently there are few, and the two that come to mind I judge unlikely to be interested.  Check out www.villagebicycleproject.org and www.psouganda.org for further info.

Which brings us to your third point.  We’d of course welcome any assistance in publicity, for ourselves and for the movement of which we are a part.  Although we are one of the newer groups (of half a dozen or so), we are now the largest, and have been asked to place shipments produced by other groups, or introduce them to our partners, owing to our 100% record in getting shipments into the countries we are seeking to assist.  The reason for our success, I believe, is our methodology, which requires that new partners be “invested” in the success of the project through paying a share of direct shipping costs ahead of time.  While this screens out many smaller, poorer organizations, it ensures that groups don’t “walk away” when shipments encounter delays, and extra storage and other port fees, in Customs.  

Let’s brainstorm more, and see if there is a story line or angle that one of your publications might find interesting.    Maybe, for example, interview some bicycle donors about their bikes, their use/history/emotional significance, and then follow those bikes overseas, and get the stories on their eventual destination and use??  Or the growing “affluenza” epidemic, as seen in the cycling area?? 

All the best,

-k

Keith Oberg

Director

Bikes for the World

3108 17th Street North

Arlington VA 22201

Tel-fax 703-525-0931

info@bikesfortheworld.org

www.bikesfortheworld.org

"A bicycle can get someone someplace...like from poverty to self-sufficiency."