We got the following email from Lucinda at the Bike Project recently. A cycling worthwhile cause.
Hello!
My name is Lucinda and I work at The Bike Project. I am reaching out to you in the hope that you can help me with some outreach for a cycling programme that I’m running! We are a small charity dedicated to getting refugees cycling by collecting unwanted bikes, fixing them up and donating them to refugees and asylum seekers. We are based in South East London with a workshop in Deptford and in the West Midlands, with a second workshop in Birmingham. Here is our website: The Bike Project | We refurbish and donate bikes to refugees .Alongside our donations, we run a programme called Pedal Power where we take groups of Refugee Woman and teach them how to cycle. We then also have a second programme called Bike Buddies –which I am hoping to recruit more volunteers for in West London!
To give you a bit more background, the Bike Buddies programme pairs our refugee and asylum-seeking bike recipients with volunteer cyclists in their area to go on rides together. It aims to build confidence and knowledge of cycling, reduce isolation, improve well-being and encourage social integration and greater independence. It’s relatively low time commitment but garners huge rewards for those taking part. Here’s a video explaining more, with our incredible supporter Clare Balding when she volunteered for this program and was matched with Ahmed, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcV1CcyhzpA and full information and details of how to apply can be found https://thebikeproject.co.uk/pages/join-bike-buddies .
We have found more recently that a lot of our Bike recipients are increasingly based around Ealing, Southall, Wembley and Kilburn. At the minute, we don’t have a lot of volunteers in this area and so I was hoping you could share it with your members/audience in the hope of attracting some applications!
If you want to find out more please email Lucinda Humphreys on lucinda@thebikeproject.co.uk. She will call you back if you prefer a phone discussion.
