Support Earn-A-Bike in Ghana

5 April 2006 - New photos are up here and here.

I have updated this page for those of you who have already seen and exhausted the old page. If you are new to this website or want to see the the history of Earn-A-Bike in Ghana (including the original project proposal), please visit the old page.

• Pictures from Ghana, October 2003 - present
• Archive of e-mail updates, September 2003 - present
• Donate!
• Other ways to get involved
• Links
• Contact me

Most Recent Update - 4 January 2006

Hello everyone!

Welcome back to the world of Earn-A-Bike in Ghana! I hope you are all doing well and have had restful holidays. I'm sorry that I haven't been keeping you updated on what has happened with the program in the last year. Part of the reason is that with communication from there to here (and vice versa) being so difficult, it's been hard to know myself what is going on. However, I'm excited to tell you that after 15 months back in the States, I'm going back to Ghana!

My original plan for my return trip was to spend about three months doing follow-up work. However, something even better is now in the works, which demonstrates the growing interest in and support of the Village Bicycle Project's work. VBP has enlisted a great new volunteer, Jaye Marolla, who is going to spend four months in Ghana to help build up the communication and administration side of things, as well as being a general resource for those of us on both sides of the Atlantic. Jaye has been working with the Bike Safety Club and doing a lot of community bicycle advocacy with the Community Cycling Center in Portland, OR. In addition, she already has experience in working overseas, having volunteered with an NGO called the Maasai American Organization in Megwarra, Kenya! Her commitments to bicycle advocacy, transportation justice, and sustainable development are a real asset to the VBP, and Dave and I are thrilled to have her on board.

I will be going to Ghana with Jaye on January 11 and spending a month there, helping her get settled in, introducing her to people, and providing some background and guidance. Dave will arrive in mid-February, shortly after I leave, and he and Jaye have plans to hold a group Earn-A-Bike "trainers' training," possibly in Golokuati. A major step in maintaining the quality of the EAB programs is ongoing work with the instructors and assistants, giving them time and opportunity to build their mechanical and teaching skills, as well as the chance to meet each other and discuss their experiences. A large part of Jaye's time will be spent facilitating this workshop and then observing and documenting the subsequent Earn-A-Bike classes at the three sites.

Aside from helping Jaye, I'm really looking forward to seeing with my own eyes how the programs are doing and catching up with old friends. It's hard to believe that it's been over a year since I came back to the U.S. Sometimes I think about my life in Ghana and wonder, "Was that really me?" because it seems so far off. And it's not just time and geographic distance but some kind of psychological gap, as well. It can be really overwhelming at times trying to reconcile life - as it is lived in general, not just by me - over there with life here. I think it's often just conceptually unbelievable that such wildly incongruous types of living can be existing at the same time on this planet, and when such a difficult concept becomes a physically lived reality for me, I find it pretty tough, emotionally and cognitively.

So mostly I just try to think small. I think about Auntie Philo yelling at me in her big, laughing voice; and about Yayra, wearing her unassuming and quietly intelligent smile while working on her little purple mountain bike; and about Elizabeth, looking down and laughing shyly at one moment and confidently explaining derailleurs to teachers and students alike in the next. I know that Earn-A-Bike is not going to fix this crazy world, but I do believe that it is something small that has changed a few people's lives for the better, and that is something.

If possible, please consider if you can make a donation to help keep Earn-A-Bike and the Village Bicycle Project going. We're not the biggest organization, nor the one with the widest scope, but sometimes it's the small things that help us stay focused and hopeful. I know it has been a very difficult year for a lot of people, and many of us are feeling overwhelmed by the seemingly unending traumas and catastrophes. I know that when I feel helpless and hopeless, my solution is often just to shut myself off and go watch a movie or play on the internet. But if you can donate, any amount, I promise it will go a very long way. Checks can be sent to

Village Bicycle Project
c/o Palouse-Clearwater Environmental Institute
P.O. Box 8596
Moscow, ID 83843

You can specify whether you would like your donation to go to the general Village Bicycle Project fund (which will support one-day workshops, EAB, tool subsidies, and other on-the-ground projects) or specifically to Earn-A-Bike.

Thanks again to all of you for your support, past and present. Please feel free to e-mail me if you have any questions or requests for my trip. I'm looking forward to be able to give you news from the ground!

Peace,
Emily

P.S. If you are interested, I have available a PowerPoint presentation (98 MB) that I used for my talk at Bikes Not Bombs in November 2004. It is too big to put on my website (http://www.computersand.com/~eslin/vbp), but if you are interested, I can put it on a cd for you. I've also updated the site a bit. There you can find an archive of my old EAB updates as well as photos and other resources. Also, please visit the official Village Bicycle Project website at http://www.pcei.org/vbp.