Bikes to Rwanda: A Story of Prosperity
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ETH/316
November 26, 2012
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Bikes to Rwanda: A Story of Prosperity Stumptown Coffee Roasters is a small coffee roaster in Portland, Oregon that buys its fair trade coffee from co-ops around the world, including the Karaba Co-op from Rwanda, Africa. During a meeting Stumptown asked the Karaba what they needed. One of the answers was bikes to help transport the coffee from the hills to the processing centers. Thus, the Bikes to Rwanda Project non-profit organization was born. Bikes to Rwnada was started to help the developing communities achieve economic stability, sustainability, prosperity and even pride. With help from bicycle maker Tom Ritchey, founder of Ritchey Design, Bikes to Rwanda designed bikes with longer frames to be able to transport up to 350 lbs. Until Bikes to Rwanda started providing bikes, workers had to carry bags full of cherries up and down the steep muddy unpaved hills one bag at a time. Now, workers can carry up to two bags at a time and much quicker than before. Tom Ritchey also help to found Project Rwanda, another non-profit organization dedicated to provide coffee bikes to West Hills Coffee. Rwanda is a war-torn country in Africa. One of Rwanda’s main products is coffee. After years of war and genocide, the country’s coffee farms were destroyed and poverty was high. Bikes to Rwanda provides bikes at a discounted rate of around $120 (GOOD Worldwide, LLC, 2007). Those who want bikes are allowed to work off their debt for the bike from each bag of coffee they bring to the weighing station. Since 2006, Project Rwanda has “sold and distributed over 2,500 coffee bikes throughout Rwanda.” (Project Rwanda, 2012). Bikes to Rwanda not only provided low-cost coffee bikes, but they also provided classes on how to maintain the bikes. Workers learn how to assemble the bikes, service them, and replace parts when needed. In the future Project Rwanda hopes to provide a sustainable parts inventory and to continue partnerships with bicycle manufacturers to distribute low-cost bicycles and parts for years to come. Providing the coffee bikes to the workers allows them to be more productive. They can carry twice as much twice as fast. “It’s not as tiresome as it used to be”, says one worker in the Bikes to Rwanda film (GOOD Worldwide, LLC, 2007). Less tired workers lead to happier workers. Happier workers also lead to higher production. Higher production also leads to more profits. More profits lead to a more robust economy for the community. Ultimately, a better economy can lead the community out of poverty. Project Rwanda is also trying to distribute bikes to other areas of Rwanda, other African countries and other non-African developing countries. Project Rwanda is also responsible for starting a national cycling team which is the subject of the 2012 film Rising from the Ashes. The national cycling team has given the recovering nation something of which they can be proud. At the end of the GOOD video Bikes to Rwanda director Clara Seasholtz commented that buy customers buying high quality coffee at high prices was a way for customers to help the poor communities of Rwanda. It’s connects the customers to the producers in a way that can make the customers feel like they are a part of something big and not just lift the profits of large corporations. To some consumers, that may be a high priority and an ethical choice that they are always willing to make. The thing that makes projects such as Bikes to Rwanda and Project Rwanda a good ethical choice is because these organizations are not legally-binded to provide low cost transportation to the coffee producers, but because they choose to do it. The only thing the roasters who buy the coffee, such as Stumptown, have to follow is the trade regulations. Rwanda is a developing nation. Their population is on the mend and their economy will need a boost. Bikes to Rwanda and Project Rwanda won’t solve all of their problems, but it helps. It helps by boosting production with the coffee bikes being able to increase workload and decreasing energy used. (Work smarter, not harder.) It allows the people of the community to own a transport which they can use for work and for carrying things like groceries, products, and gifts for home life, which gives people a sense of independence. It helps communities to be self sustained by teaching them how to maintain the bikes and providing low cost equipment to fix them. (Give a man a fish and feed him for the night. Teach a man to fish and feed him for life.) The national cycling team gives the nation pride. And ultimately, the customers, the ones who buy the coffee from the local coffee houses, have a choice to buy a coffee that can help a country miles away, not by giving them a hand out, but a help up.

Works Cited:

GOOD Worldwide, LLC. (2007, October 1). Liberty Mutual Insurance Company. Retrieved November 26, 2012, from Responsibility Project: http://responsibility-project.libertymutual.com/films/bikes-to-rwanda#fbid=ouo1I22CWz9

Project Rwanda. (2012). Project Rwanda. Retrieved November 26, 2012, from Project Rwanda: http://projectrwanda.org/