City women hope to change African lives
Tracey Tong/metro ottawa
Bicycles for Humanity Ottawa organizers Sandra Gattola, left, and Seb Oran want to send donated bikes from Ottawa to Africa.
“You and your bike might not take that road trip you bought it for, but that doesn’t mean it’s doomed to a life of broken dreams and rust.”
I bought my mountain bike with the intention of spending more time in the great outdoors.
But four years, five bad spills and three cities later, my bike sits — mostly unused — in my living room.
While Seb Oran and Sandra Gattola can’t make me a skilled urban cyclist, they can ensure that my bike gets a journey of a lifetime.
The city residents, who founded Bicycles for Humanity Ottawa this year, are collecting good, used bikes to ship to Namibia, a poverty-stricken country in Southern Africa.
The majority of the Namibian population earns less than $1 US per day. Forty-five per cent of the population is unemployed and 60 per cent don’t have access to transportation.
“We feel it’s a hand up, not a handout,” said Oran. “By giving them bicycles, we’re empowering them with their own transportation.
“Whether they go to school, work or bring produce to the market, it means they can go twice as fast, three times as far and carry four times the load.”
With a 20- to 40-year lifespan, bicycles are a lasting gift. And if anyone can understand the role of bicycles in daily life, it’s bike-friendly Ottawa’s commuter culture. The nature of the project gives Ottawans a direct connection to the people they’re helping halfway across the world, Oran said.
The organization works with the Bicycle Empowerment Network in Namibia to distribute the bikes.
This Saturday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., the duo is collecting youth and adult mountain and hybrid bikes in working condition at 100 Constellation Crescent.
The bikes are packed into a 40-foot shipping container bound for Namibia, where, upon arrival, the container is converted into a Bicycle Empowerment Centre — a building, of sorts, that serves as a bike workshop.
In addition to collecting up to 400 bicycles, the women also hope to collect backpacks, gently-used sports equipment and donations to cover shipping costs.
You and your bike might not take that road trip you bought it for, but that doesn’t mean it’s doomed to a life of broken dreams and rust.
For the people of Namibia, it could mean a journey out of poverty.
Metro Ottawa’s Tracey Tong is an award-winning reporter. A Burlington native, Tong’s career has taken her all over Ontario. Her Cityscapes column appears every Wednesday.
