GivingTuesday is a global day of charitable giving in response to Black Friday and Cyber Monday. It’s celebrated on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, so this year, GivingTuesday is on 29 November.
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As part of GivingTuesday, World Bicycle Relief is aiming to raise enough money in one day to provide students in the developing world with 1,200 bicycles.
Lack of infrastructure and access to transport can inhibit development in regions across the world, and bicycles can address some of these hurdles. Through rugged, locally built bicycles, World Bicycle Relief provides ease of access to education and healthcare, while providing the opportunity to travel further and transport more goods to market and trade, too.
As well as increasing mobility, the specially designed, robust Buffalo Bicycles are efficient and scalable across rural areas in developing countries and are locally assembled to provide jobs.
What is World Bicycle Relief?
World Bicycle Relief was founded in 2005 by FK Day, one of the founders of SRAM, and Leah Day as a response to the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami. With strong backing from SRAM and other cycling industry leaders, World Bicycle Relief partnered with aid organisations in Sri Lanka and provided 24,000 bicycles to displaced survivors. Through the bicycle, communities were reconnected, access to healthcare and education was made easier and opportunities to create livelihoods were made.
The positive impact made in Sri Lanka has led to further projects across Africa, South America and South-East Asia, resulting in a running total of over 320,000 bicycles in the past ten years.
Buffalo Bicycles has earned a superior reputation in developing regions, and developmental organisations, farmers and individuals have sought to purchase the bicycles for their personal use and programs — leading to a social enterprise subsidiary of World Bicycle Relief that sells directly to those in need of reliable transportation.
What can you do?
On GivingTuesday, World Bicycle Relief hopes to fund 1,200 bicycles for students in a single day. You can help achieve this goal through spreading the word and — most importantly — donating. On GivingTuesday all donations will be matched making the goal all the more reachable.
