REDDITCH-based Halfords is sending a team of staff out to the Gambia to present 500 recycled bikes to local communities in the west African country.
Kindly donated by members of the public, these bikes will provide those in need the means of affordable travel and create enterprises for trained bike mechanics in the area.
In conjunction with Halfords’ charity partner Re~Cycle, ten colleagues, all from the Republic of Ireland, will be donating the bikes in person after putting forward their idea of travelling to the Gambia as part of a Halfords colleague competition offering the ‘Journey of a Lifetime’.
The competition was open to all 12,000 Halfords employees and offered up to £35,000 to fund the Journey of a Lifetime for the winning team. The worthy winners put together a comprehensive proposal for their journey and were selected for their charitable and highly ambitious ideas.
Halford spokesman Jonathan Crookall said: “The team exceeded all expectations. Their plans to create a sustainable apprenticeship scheme is really beyond anything we imagined. They had a fantastic idea, have put a huge amount of effort into planning and fundraising and they deserve to have a brilliant time on their Journey of a Lifetime.”
The team made their final preparations by visiting Re~Cycle’s depot in Colchester, loading bikes, goody bags and apprentice toolkits into a shipping container they will be reunited with in the Gambia on February 22.
While in the country they will be based in the village of Madina Salam. After presenting the bikes to the local community they plan to run Kid’s bike workshops alongside training and coaching the village cycle mechanics and helping them to improve workshop processes.
They will also set up an apprenticeship scheme with the help of WYCE – Re~Cycle’s partner in the Gambia – and will begin training four new apprentices. WYCE will then take the project forward, continuing to manage the scheme over the next 18 months.
In many parts of Africa owning a bike means people can travel to work, school and carry goods and passengers. To date Halfords has helped Re~Cycle send 20,000 bikes to 16 different countries in Africa and it’s estimated that each bike is used by as many as six people.
The scheme cannot be sustained without charitable donations – shipping costs, tools and training are all a vital part of the process. If you would like to donate to the team’s fundraising page, visit www.gofundme.com/joalwithhalfords
