In the Nguni languages of South Africa, of which Zulu is one, Qhubeka means “to carry on”, “to continue”, “to progress” or “to move forward”.
Qhubeka is a South African registered non-profit organization.
Qhubeka’s Bicycle InitiativeTransportation is an important means to economic, educational, social and personal ends. Transportation is a link to opportunity. It links workers to places of employment, producers to users of goods and services, students to schools, patients to health care, and everyone to family and friends.
Transportation is thus a fundamental element of development.
Most of Africa’s rural population have no access to any form of transport and people have to walk long distances to access economic opportunities, education, healthcare, shops and other community services.
Rural schoolchildren are particularly badly affected by this lack of mobility. Of the 16 million children in school in South Africa, 12 million walk to school. Of these, 500,000 walk more than two hours each way, spending four hours getting to school and back each day. Much of the time and energy of rural schoolchildren is thus absorbed in getting to and from school each day – time that could be far more productively spent doing homework or helping at home.
Whilst motorized transport is prohibitively expensive to acquire and run for most people, and buses and taxis are also expensive, unreliable and emit carbon monoxide which is bad for the environment; the bicycle is the most effective and economical method of quickly (and permanently) addressing some of the problems relating to lack of mobility in the disadvantaged communities of South Africa. Bicycles play a vital role in advancing sustainable socio-economic development in both rural and urban communities around the world.
The concept of ‘earning your bike’Qhubeka’s founding philosophy was that communities should be given a ‘hand up’ rather than a ‘hand out’ and so instead of giving bicycles away for free we work with donors to subsidise or finance the cost of each bicycle with the recipients contributing a minimum of 25% of each bicycle.
Some of our established bike communities are now contributing 50%. Because most of the proposed recipients of bicycles do not have the money available to pay their 25%, it is necessary to identify ways in which children could use methods other than cash to pay their contribution towards their bicycles.
The method that is used for Qhubeka’s Wildlands-Trees-for-Bikes project is that the beneficiaries collect seeds from indigenous trees in their surroundings and to grow 150 trees over a period of six months. The trees are then traded and the money generated pays for the child’s portion of the bicycle cost. This is only one of any number of methods other than cash that is used for beneficiaries to make a contribution to earning a bicycle. We have found that once people have worked to contribute towards paying for their bicycle it has additional value to them. Preference is therefore given to communities where an ‘earning your bike’ component is included in the project plan.
Potential benefits attached to bicycle transportationCost effective transport: Bicycles are the most cost effective form of transport in the world - they need not be expensive to purchase and have virtually no running costs associated with them (other than basic repairs). They are twice as fast as walking using half the amount of effort. The use of bicycles for local transport also results in significant savings on taxi fares.
Economic benefits: The use of bicycles in a community could stimulate local innovation both indirectly through providing a cheap and efficient means of transporting goods to market, and directly by encouraging local entrepreneurs to make a living from bicycle spares and repairs.
Environmentally-friendly transport: Bicycles offer a ‘clean’ (pollution free and energy efficient) form of transport – greater use of bicycles reduce the levels of pollution currently created by motorized transport like taxis and buses.
Time savings: Riding a bicycle helps rural children save a lot of time on travelling to and from school and allows for more of their time to be spent doing homework. Bicycles are also used by rural women and children to transport their fuel and produce more time efficiently. Simple adaptations turn bicycles into excellent load-bearing vehicles.
Healthy extra-curricular activity: Riding a bicycle is a healthy activity. It encourages the development of a new generation of competitive cyclists too.
Appropriate bicycles for rural African conditionsQhubeka has partnered with the Institute of Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) to assist in the design the most appropriate and cost effective bicycles for African conditions.
Costs
The one-speed California bikes cost approximately US$60 each, helmets are US$2 each and spares approximately US$10 per bike. Thus the total cost of a bike is approximately US$75. Parts for 1000 bicycles are shipped at a time to Port Elizabeth where they are assembled by trained people from the local community (Job creation).
Qhubeka trains community based Bike mechanics and facilitates the on-going supply of tools and spare parts. |
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