November 5th Dinner Poster

And here's the dinner poster.

Thanks again to Tiffany Shih for her artistic help and creative input.

November 5th Meet and Greet Poster

SDC4WBR would like to extend a very special thanks to Tiffany Shih for volunteering her time to design the posters and postcards for the event!

Thank you, Tiffany.

Chris Horner Dinner and Meet & Greet Details!!!

Well, it's time to let the cat out of the bag.

On Friday, November 5th 2010, SDC4WBR is proud and honored to be hosting a very special evening in support of World Bicycle Relief with very special guest, Chris Horner.

The first part of the evening will be a meet and greet with Mr. Horner at B&L's Sports Arena location (3603 Camino Del Rio West, San Diego, CA) and the second will be an intimate four course dinner at The Farmhouse Cafe (2121 Adams Ave., San Diego, CA) that is limited to 40 seats total. The minimum donation to attend the meet and greet is $25 and $200 to attend the dinner.

For the meet & greet we will have door prizes, giveaways, light refreshments and an opportunity to meet, chat with and get your picture taken with a truly exceptional athlete while supporting an outstanding charity.

The dinner will be a very special affair with a silent auction, goodie bags for all attendees (courtesy of SRAM) and an incredible four-course rustic, French meal with wine pairings.

Chef Olivier Bioteau will prepare an exquisite four-course dinner that will feature, among other items, the following:

    *Savoy Spinach, Burratta cheese, Proscuitto, and Caramelized Fig Flatbread;

    *Lobster Tortellini Leek Fondue, with Coconut Scented Beurre Blanc

    *Truffle Crusted Black Cod, alongside Pumpkin & Chestnut Risotto

    *Braised Beef Cheeks, Celeriac Puree, with Pomme Dauphine

In addition to creating the menu, Chef Bioteau has also chosen wine pairings for each dish ensuring that an excellent sip accompanies each spectacular bite!

Along with the outstanding menu, you will also have the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to share a meal with Chris Horner, to hear his stories and tales of racing and Le Tour, and to literally lean over and ask him how he likes the food and wine. It truly is a remarkable opportunity to not only help World Bicycle Relief, but also spend an evening with a world-class athlete.

You'll also leave with a goodie bag from SRAM, have the opportunity to bid on limited edition SRAM components ridden and signed by Lance Armstrong and go home with a polaroid of you, Chris Horner and the Eiffel Tower*.

To register for one or both events please visit: http://sdc4wbr.kintera.org/

Remember, your donation is tax deductible and by attending your coming together with your fellow cyclists and community members to provide education, medical care, economic development while providing poverty relief through sustainable mobility.

See you on November 5th!

*Not the actual Eiffel tower, but an Eiffel tower.

"A Boy and his Bicycle(s)" NYTimes piece on World Bicycle Relief

Great new piece on WBR in the NYTimes.

Follow this link to see pictures and the original article.

September 15, 2010
A Boy and a Bicycle(s)
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

Early this year I wrote a column from Zimbabwe that focused on five orphans who moved in together and survive alone in a hut.

The eldest, Abel, a scrawny and malnourished 17-year-old, would rise at 4 o’clock each morning and set off barefoot on a three-hour hike to high school. At nightfall, Abel would return to function as surrogate father: cajoling the younger orphans to finish their homework by firelight, comforting them when sick and spanking them when naughty.

When I asked Abel what he dreamed of, he said “a bicycle” — so that he could cut the six hours he spent walking to and from school and, thus, take better care of the younger orphans. Last week, Abel got his wish. A Chicago-based aid organization, World Bicycle Relief, distributed 200 bicycles to students in Abel’s area who need them to get to school. One went to Abel.

The initiative is a pilot. If it succeeds and finds financing, tens of thousands of other children in Zimbabwe could also get bicycles to help them attend school.

“I’m happy,” Abel told me shyly — his voice beaming through the phone line — when I spoke to him after he got his hands on his bicycle.

Before, he said, he wasn’t sure that he would pass high school graduation exams because he had no time to study. Now he is confident that he will pass.

The bicycle project is the brainchild of a Chicago businessman, Frederick K.W. Day, who read about Abel and decided to make him and his classmates a test of a large-scale bicycles-for-education program in Zimbabwe.

Mr. Day is a senior executive of the SRAM Corporation, the largest bicycle parts company in the United States. He formed World Bicycle Relief in 2005 in the belief that bicycles could help provide cheap transportation for students and health workers in poor countries.

At first, his plan was to ship used bicycles from the United States, but after visits to the field he decided that they would break down. “When we got out there, it was clear that no bike made in the U.S. would survive in that environment,” he said.

After consulting with local people and looking at the spare parts available in remote areas, Mr. Day’s engineering staff designed a 55-pound one-speed bicycle that needed little pampering. One notorious problem with aid groups is that they introduce new technologies that can’t always be sustained; the developing world is full of expensive wells that don’t work because the pumps have broken and there is no one to repair them.

So World Bicycle Relief trains one mechanic — equipped with basic spare parts and tools — for every 50 bicycles distributed, thus nurturing small businesses as well. Abel was one of those trained as a mechanic this time.

In the world of aid, nothing goes quite as planned, and it’s far too early to know whether this program will succeed. World Bicycle Relief tried to get around potential problems by spending months recruiting village elders to oversee the program (it helps that the elders receive bicycles, which they get to keep after two years if they provide solid oversight). Elders will ensure that fathers and older brothers do not confiscate bicycles from girls on the grounds that females are too insignificant to merit something so valuable.

Parents sometimes try to save daughters the risk of walking several hours each way to school by lodging them in town. But the result is sometimes sexual extortion; if a girl wishes to continue her education by staying in cheap lodgings, the price is repeated rape. With bicycles, those girls will now be able to stay at home.

World Bicycle Relief has given out more than 70,000 bicycles so far, nearly 70 percent to women and girls. It expects to hand out 20,000 bicycles this year. And if all goes well, Abel may be the first of tens of thousands of Zimbabwean students to get a bike.

So, for Abel, this is something of a fairy-tale ending. But one of my challenges as a journalist is that many donors want to help any specific individual I write about, while few want to support countless others in the same position.

One obstacle is donor fatigue and weariness with African corruption and repeated aid failures. Those are legitimate concerns. But this column isn’t just a story about a boy and a bike. Rather, it’s an example of an aid intervention that puts a system in place, one that is sustainable and has local buy-in, in hopes of promoting education, jobs and a virtuous cycle out of poverty. It’s a reminder that there are ways to help people help themselves, and that problems can have solutions — but we need to multiply them. Just ask Abel.

Thank you for reading!

"Bicycles In Zambia Are More Valuable Than Cars."

CNN covered WBR's effort in Zambia, read the story below and follow the link to see the video!!!

Lusaka, Zambia (CNN) -- In rural Zambia, a bicycle is one of the most important possessions someone can have.

At one school, when they were given out to pupils by World Bicycle Relief, the roll increased from 300 to 867 pupils.

Headteacher Michael Gogolola explained: "Bicycles in Africa, especially in this part of Zambia, they are more valuable than a vehicle, because they use them even for grinding mill, they use them for transport to the hospital, to the clinic and to the school.
"When we came to this school, the enrolment was 300, now when the World Bicycle Relief came with bicycles, even the girls who had left school, just because they heard about the bicycles, they came back to school."

Not all the 867 pupils have bicycles, but those who do treasure them as a lifeline in an impoverished country and a powerful incentive to stay in school.
World Bicycle Relief is a Chicago-based organization which began by providing bicycles in Sri Lanka after the 2004 tsunami.

In 2006 it moved on to Zambia, where it began distributing bicycles to healthcare workers helping people living with HIV and AIDS, and in 2009 started giving them to schoolchildren as part of its Bicycles for Education Empowerment Program.
World Bicycle Relief has so far supplied 30,000 bicycles in Zambia, as well as training a network of maintenance mechanics.

Dave Neiswander, World Bicycle Relief's head of Africa operations, said: "It's connecting people with education, it's connecting people with healthcare, it's connecting people with their own economic development. It's a tool to help themselves."
The bikes themselves had to be designed to cope with the rough ground and heavy loads that many people need to carry.

"Our bicycle is designing to withstand the difficult terrain of Africa," said Neiswander. "The rack can withstand 100 kg, that's ideal if you're taking produce to market or someone to clinic. We use heavy duty rims and spokes, reinforce the tires, it's basically a tank."
World Bicycle Relief administers its program in partnership with the Zambian Ministry of Education, community organizations and several other international NGOs.
The organization points out that many children in rural Zambia do not complete their education because their families -- especially families with HIV or AIDS -- are dependent on their children's economic activity.

Because many children travel long distances to school, it identified providing safe, reliable transport as a key way of keeping children in education longer.
Zambia has the world's third highest death rate and second shortest life expectancy of 38, according to the CIA World Factbook.

The county is estimated to have 1.1 million people -- 15 per cent of the adult population -- living with HIV or AIDS, which kills an estimated 56,000 people a year. It also has the world's eighth highest infant mortality rate of more than 10 percent.

Among those who have received one of World Bicycle Relief's distinctive black bicycles is 15-year-old Fewstar Walweendo. She uses it to cycle the two kilometers to Gogolola's school after completing her daily chores, including sweeping the yard, making breakfast and cleaning the plates.

Her deputy headteacher Monica Mtongadaka said: "To a Zambian child, to a rural child, to have a bicycle really motivates, because it eases her movement to and from school, and that's what's happened to Fewstar."

CNN: Bicycles offer a lifeline in rural Zambia