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| By giving new life to used bicycles, David Schweidenback, who won a Rolex Award
in 2000, is improving the lives of people in many developing countries. Pedals For
Progress, the organisation he founded in 1991, has just collected and exported its
100,000th bike – and is now extending its activities to sewing-machines. |
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| When Bob Uhlendorf finally decided to get rid of the bicycle
that had been taking up space at the back of his garage for almost five
years, little did he dream that his action would help fulfil the hopes of one of
Guatemala's up-and-coming cyclists. One rainy Saturday in June 2006, Uhlendorf,
from High Bridge, New Jersey, in the United States, took his bike – a standard, steelframed,
10-speed Rampar racing model from the 1970s – to a collection for used
bikes organised by Pedals For Progress (P4P) in a parking lot near his home. To his
great surprise, a crowd of 35 people, including journalists and a senator from the New
Jersey state legislature, were there to watch him hand over his old bicycle to David
Schweidenback, president and founder of P4P. Uhlendorf was the unsuspecting
donor of the 100,000th bicycle given to the organisation since it was set up in 1991.
"He clearly wasn't expecting all this – he was just bringing us a bike which his
grown-up children no longer had any use for", explains Schweidenback. "But for an
organisation as small as ours, collecting our 100,000th bike was similar to the
exhilaration one feels after a long, arduous climb when one finally makes it to
the summit. It's a major milestone, which had to be duly celebrated." |
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David
Schweidenback (right) thanks Bob Uhlendorf for donating
the 100,000th bicycle to Pedals for Progress.
© Reykha Bonilla |
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Pedals For Progress, which is based in
New Jersey, now redistributes used bicycles in 28 countries in Central and South
America, Asia, Eastern Europe and Africa, to increase the mobility of disadvantaged
people. The project earned Schweidenback a Rolex Award in 2000.
After being collected, P4P's 100,000th bicycle was sent without delay on the
long journey that would bring it to its new home. First, a lorry carried it to the port
of Newark, where Schweidenback and his team of volunteers loaded it into a shipping
container, along with almost 500 other bicycles, all headed for Guatemala.
After travelling for eight weeks over sea and land, the container arrived at San
Andres de Iztapa, a farming town of 13,000 inhabitants in the hilly, central
region of Chimaltenango. There P4P's local partner, the non-profit organisation
FIDESMA (Integrated Foundation for Sustainable Development and the Environment),
took delivery of the bicycles, undertaking to sell them at a low price
and reinvest the profit in community projects, for example to provide free dental
treatment or care for mentally handicapped children. |
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It was in the FIDESMA offices that the
Rampar, just in from New Jersey, caught the eye of 31-year-old Mateo Patzan.
At night Patzan works as a security guard, but in the day he is a celebrity: for seven
consecutive years he has been the regional cycling champion and the pride of his
whole village, situated a few kilometres from San Andres. All the villagers hope
that one day Patzan will win first place in national races.
With no sponsor, the only support Patzan gets comes from FIDESMA, which
provides him with spare parts and encouragement. As the Rampar, which is
heavier than current models, is an ideal bike for training in the hills, Patzan
decided to buy it and paid about $10.
"My dream is to become a professional cyclist", he confesses as he looks admiringly
at the bicycle.
Cycling is a passion for this father of five, who supports his family with his
night job, and grows vegetables on a small piece of land he owns. "My job as a
security guard is my family's only source of income," Patzan explains. "To get support
from a sponsor, I'd have to go away for weeks at a time to take part in competitions.
And who'd feed my family then?"
Villagers often see him working his patch of land almost immediately after taking
part in an 80km bike race. He hopes the Rampar will help him improve his sporting
performance significantly so he can win many more regional competitions.
Prize money from individual races can be as much as $500, a welcome supplement
to Patzan's salary. |
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At
San Andres de Iztapa, bicycles from P4P allow children
to participate in the annual bike race held to celebrate
Guatemala's Independence Day.
© Reykha Bonilla |
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David Schweidenback is enthusiastic
about the different uses people find for the bicycles exported by P4P: "The people
who get the bicycles can find a job several kilometres from home, or even
create one themselves. Mateo uses his to win cycling races, and others have set up
bike-repair shops or small taxi-bike businesses, or they've made adjustments to
their bike so they can transport and sell food or drink. In each case, we're allowing
people to help themselves."
Asked why P4P asks for a small fee for the bicycles, rather than simply giving
them away, Schweidenback says: "We are an organisation seeking economic growth.
One cannot spur a capitalistic economy by giving things away. Giving things away
actually damages an economy." |
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Margarita Caté de Catú (right), president of FIDESMA, presents a bike from P4P to Armando Jochola, the winner of the annual race.
© Reykha Bonilla |
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In his eagerness to provide opportunities
for economic development, David Schweidenback also exports growing
numbers of sewing-machines. "Bikes allow you to find a job, but sewing machines
are a job," he explains. This second P4P activity came about by accident in 1999:
"At the time, my wife had got a new sewing-machine," he explains. "When we
were wondering what to do with the old one, the answer suddenly seemed obvious:
we should send it, and others, in the next container, squeezed in between the
bikes. We immediately organised a collection, and a few weeks later we sent
17 machines to the Dominican Republic."
Since then, Schweidenback and his team have exported more than 700 sewingmachines,
including old Singers with intricate gold-leaf designs – some of them still
with their cabinet – and more recent models.
Most of them are electric-powered, and have been sent mainly to Central
America (Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala) where the voltage is the
same as in the United States, making them easier to use. |
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Thanks to a sewing
machine from P4P, Lourdes Santiso Salizar (reflected in
the mirror, left) has been able to set up her own business.
© Reykha Bonilla |
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| In the little town of Rivas in southern
Nicaragua, for example, in 2003 the José Maria Moncada Secondary School bought
two P4P sewing-machines on which students learn the rudiments of zigzag
stitching and how to use the foot pedal.
The school stays open in the evenings, when the machines can be used by
adults who come in to alter their family's clothes or sew tablecloths which are then
sold in the local markets. In Guatemala, at San Andres, Lourdes Santiso Salizar has
developed a flourishing business making wedding dresses, thanks to the used
machine she was able to buy cheaply in 1999 from a P4P partner organisation.
In Opatoro, in western Honduras, a distribution of machines prompted 23 women
to come together and set up a cooperative where they make school uniforms.
Ever since, they have been making a steady income for their community of
30 families living in a remote part of the country. "This is the re-allocation
of wealth from people who no longer need it to those who can make a living
out of it," Schweidenback explains.
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While proud of what his organisation
has achieved thus far, this former Peace Corps volunteer, now aged 54, is constantly
setting himself new challenges.
"Our next step will be to send bikes to Jamaica and the Kurdistan region of
northern Iraq. We know it won't be easy, but we're pretty excited about it." The
Rolex Award he won in 2000 enabled him to extend his activities to Colombia,
Ghana, Kenya, Moldavia, Pakistan and South Africa, but he is now looking for
new partners to extend P4P further afield.
The organisation is also planning to buy a warehouse in New Jersey so that volunteers
can organise the work throughout the full year. "At the moment, we can't
store our bikes," Schweidenback says. "So we can only work from April to June and
September to November – in other words, we're restricted to the months in which
people clear out their houses, when what we collect will fill the containers in one
go. If we could store the bikes, our production could be doubled." Of the
$400,000 needed to buy a warehouse, $80,000 has already been collected, and
the fundraising campaign is in full swing.
"We've done something very simple, but also very positive for the world. It's a
great feeling", says the Laureate. But he is not content to rest on his laurels: "It took
me 15 years to get to 100,000. My new challenge is to get to 200,000 in less than
10 years."
Francesco Raeli |
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School students in Rivas,
Nicaragua, are learning how to make their own clothes on two machines
bought from P4P.
© Courtesy of P4P |
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Mr David Schweidenback
86 East Main Street
High Bridge, NJ 08829-2510
United States
To find out more, visit website: www.p4p.org
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