Bikes crossing borders

To The Campus,

The bicycle need not be abandoned when we turn 16 and (finally) pass the drivers test. They are generally so beneficial to society. Heck, my college roommate rode her bike 300 miles in three days over the summer for the Make a Wish Foundation in Michigan.

Still there is a discrepancy in global access to bicycles. For many, riding a bike is recreational. For others, it’s an environmentally righteous decision to not take a car. For some, it’s an aid to survival.

Numerous non-profits exist to bring bicycles to impoverished villages that have no other means of transportation. “Wheels4Life,” “Bikes not Bombs” and the “World Bicycle Relief,” to name a few, see the practicality in providing bikes to schoolchildren and adults alike in poor, often rural areas. Young students are incentivized to stay in school if provided a bike, and jobs can be accomplished much more efficiently with faster transportation of goods. Additionally, jobs are provided with the necessity to service a community full of bikes.

Nicolas Kristof mentions the influence of a bike for a certain boy, Abel, in his Sept. 12 New York Times column. Abel’s village in Zimbabwe was visited by the “World Bicycle Relief,” a Chicago-based organization started to provide bikes for the 2004 tsunami refugees in Sri Lanka. Before receiving a bike, Abel walked barefoot three hours each way to school.

Abel and so many others can benefit at little cost to the environment through the spread of bicycles across boarders. There is tremendous opportunity for growth in such initiatives. Therefore, we need to spread awareness. Ride a bike, buy a child a bike, donate to a bicycle relief non-profit or visit a bike shop. They very well may bridge the seemingly insurmountable gap to global sustainable development.

Sincerely,
Elissa Goeke '12