Bikes Not Bombs Has Job Vacancies
by Warren McLaren, Sydney on 04.17.06
Every time we do a story about a bicycle reuse or repair program someone is bound to chime in with, “what about Bikes Not Bombs?” OK, we apologise for neglecting them for so long. And timely that we should bring them to the front page of TreeHugger, because they currently have job openings for three positions. You could be their new Executive Director, Bike Shop Sales Manager or Fundraising Intern. But why would you want to be? Well BNB is a “non-profit organization working for alternative transportation and community development. The group operates the Bicycle Recycling and Youth Training Center in Roxbury, MA, to promote environmental education, meaningful employment, and safe sustainable communities, both here in Roxbury and abroad.” To this end they have “sent over 22,000 bikes to Central America, the Caribbean and Africa in the last 20 years.” More recently they ahve been working closely with the Village Bicycle Project in Ghana, West Africa who have the beneficiaries of some 2,000 two wheelers from BNB. That youth training centre mentioned above provides a bucketload of bike related programs including Earn A Bike, whereby kids get to repair and build their own bike to keep (like Recycle-a-Bike in New York). Sounds like a cool place to work. ::Bikes Not Bombs.
There's another organization that recycles used bikes--Pedals for Progress, based in High Bridge, N.J. P4P is about to send their 100,000th bike in only 15 years--compare that to BNB's 22,000 in 20 years. P4P was founded by a Peace Corps alumni, Dave Schweidenback, who has won accolades from the Peace Corps, Rolex and numerous other organizations for his work. While BNB does admirable work, check out Pedals for Progress at www.p4p.org to see a model for recycling bikes that has proven to be highly cost efficient and that has also improved entire communities in the developing world.
In Chicago, we have Working Bikes, which collects old bikes and sends most to Nicaragua, Cuba, Kenya, and Ghana. The nicer ones are tuned up and sold from their Chicago shop to fund their operations.
www.workingbikes.org/
Thanks for mentioning Bikes Not Bombs! They're also currently in the process of moving into two great new locations, one of them being in an old brewery that's been converted into a home for many local, funky small businesses.
Here in Worcester, Mass we have an Earn A Bike program too.
They don't have a site, but here is an article about them on Worcester IndyMedia.
http://worcester.indymedia.org/news/2006/02/2390.php