Shipment to Maya Pedal with BNB
Working Bikes paid for the shipment of a container of bikes from Bikes Not Bombs, in Boston, to our partner Maya Pedal, in Guatemala.
Our colleagues at Bikes Not Bombs managed to cram an impressive 542 bikes into the container over the weekend!
A copy of their eMail follows ...
From: carl kurz
Subject: WB/BNB Guatemala Shipment
Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2008 13:37:53 -0500
To: "Kistler, Yuki"
To All of you Concerned,
I wish to thank all the organizations and volunteers involved with the
last container shipment to Maya Pedal. I have just spoken with Carlos
Marroquin, the lead technician from Maya Pedal who gave a presentation
here at Bikes Not Bombs in the Fall and also visited and presented at
Working Bikes in Chicago. Carlos and all the staff at Maya Pedal want
everyone to know how much they appreciate the support we have provided
to their organization. The financial support provided by Working Bikes
was something he especially wanted to mention, thanks to Lee
Ravenscroft and all the rest of you at WB that work so hard to raise
money and collect bikes to further mobility and development for the
many people around the world that are consistently marginalized because
of their lack of affordable mobility options and in the case of
Guatemala, are kept underproductive because of the lack of access to
the exemplary time-and-energy-saving machines that Maya Pedal provides
at such low costs to its target population.
All the volunteers at Bikes Not Bombs also receive kudos for a record
breaking year of collection and shipping of bikes in 2007 and now our
first early shipment of 2008. A few details for you all, somehow in
the never ending variables of New England weather, we were able to
enjoy a 45 degree magnificent day and with 16 volunteers packed our
load of 542 bikes and bike frames as well as many bundles of parts.
We started at 10 AM took a break at 1PM and finished by 2:45PM. It
was a fantastic day. In typical New England fashion, the Monday
following the loading - which took place on Saturday 1/12/08- turned
out to be the second major storm of the year for us with 8 inches of
snow - driving snow and sleet conditions- that closed the metropolitan
area schools and forced the trucking company to cancel its pick-up in
the morning. As I mentioned I was going to give you the details, this
is precisely why we try to never do a container in Jan and February.
Our fenced in yard, where the semi-trailer was parked, is shared by
gobs of businesses that come and go early on Monday morning while it is
vacant during the weekend. The trucking company was to pick up between
7:30 and 8AM and haul it New Jersey to make the cut-off date for the
ship which was set for the next day 1/15. Early in the day, Monday
1/14 the situation looked dire and to make matters much worse the area
where it was parked was precisely where the snow removal truck pushes
the snow to clear the yard! Luckily the storm did not turn out to be
the all-day-event predicted, and the trucking company was able to come
and haul the can around the noon hour. Crisis abated and its on its
way to Guatemala! We were able to send lots of bikes for Maya Pedal to
sell outright -after tune-ups - and we were also able to pack the upper
part of the container with tons of useful steel frames with 1.37 inch
bottom bracket shells, the kind MP cuts up for use in the Bici-maquina
production.
I want to say that it is unique that our organizations could work in
collaboration in this fashion with BNB supplying the bikes and packing
efforts while WB supplied the financing for this shipment to Maya
Pedal. In December of 2007 BNB also shipped to two projects that Bikes
For the World (out of DC area) normally ships to - again a sharing of
contacts, materials and will at a time when our recipient groups needed
support. This is the kind of effort and collaboration that corporate
America is nearly incapable of doing and it is a testimony to all our
values and vision. I need to mention that Gwyndaff Jones, of the
Design Lab at MIT, was also instrumental in proposing this Maya Pedal
joint shipment. I thank you all once again and look forward to future
collaborations when the situations merit our joint efforts and
cooperation.
In this vein of cooperation, I also want to bring up the idea that BNB
wishes to make contacts and form a list of organizations that ship to
various Global South countries - those organizations that might have
extra space in their containers for bikes along with their other
material aid. We would be willing to pay the sq. footage associated
with our bike portion of any joint shipment. We often receive requests
for quantities of bikes for organizations that are far less than a full
450-500 bike container. Many times these organizations are also not
contemplating setting up the infrastructure of small businesses and
bike distribution centers that BNB has normally supported, yet it is
very apparent that the bikes would have an enormous positive impact in
the manner for which they are requested, i.e. in the preventative
health field for various clinics' extension workers that need to travel
distances to distribute life saving medicines, services or to
disseminate critical information at the village level.... There are
numerous examples where 25 to 50 bikes for a specific recipient
organization could provide vast improvements in an organization's
capacity to carry out their work. I wish to form a list of US based
(maybe North American) material-aid organizations that would be willing
to collaborate at this level and share that list among our bicycle
shipping groups to enhance our effectiveness at reaching the people and
organizations that have the social vision and the understanding of how
the use of bicycles can best impact their communities. Obviously there
are conditions that would have to be worked out in each situation
amongst the recipient groups in the various countries where the joint
aid shipments would be sent. I think that this idea might also create
the potential for more collaboration amongst a variety of non-profit
groups that have similar social justice and developmental vision.
Please give me any feedback you might have to evaluate or move forward
this idea.
In Solidarity,
Carl Kurz
International Development Programs Director
Bikes Not Bombs, Inc
284 Amory St., Building K
Jamaica Plain, MA 02130 USA
617-522-0222 office
617-522-0922 fax
