Title:
Project Finds New Homes for Unwanted Bikes From US
Description: This is
a VOA Special English Technology Report.
See text below
Text:
Americans bought an estimated eighteen and a half
million bicycles last year. Some bikes never get
much riding. Mostly they gather dust. But a project
based in Washington is putting unwanted bikes from
the United States to good use in developing
countries.
Keith Oberg is the director of Bikes for the World.
He says: "Everybody has an old bicycle, and it is
usually not ridden. It sits there in the garage, or
basement or shed, going to waste."
Stephen Popick recently had two bikes to donate. He
brought in two mountain bikes that he and his wife
rode for the past ten years. He said they would not
be worth trying to sell but they could be useful to
somebody else. Bikes for the World collects bicycles
and delivers them at low cost to community programs
in developing countries. It shipped more than five
thousand bikes during the first eight months of this
year. Last year it shipped about ten thousand three
hundred.
The bicycle recycling program is one of the largest
in the United States. It is a sponsored project of
the Washington Area Bicyclist Association. Bikes for
the World began in two thousand five. Since then it
has shipped more than forty thousand bikes to
communities in Africa, Latin America and the
Caribbean, says director Keith Oberg.
He said they are working with partners in seven
countries. They have sent bikes to Namibia and the
Gambia. In Central America they sent bikes to
Panama, Costa Rica, Honduras and Guatemala. And they
are talking to two organizations in El Salvador.
Bikes for the World partners with nonprofit groups
in the United States to collect unwanted bikes. Then
it works with nonprofits in the other countries to
get the bikes to organizations and individuals that
need them the most.
For example, the Bicycle Empowerment Network Namibia
uses the bikes to provide transportation for health
workers. That makes it possible for them to visit
more patients each day. The organization also has
bicycle ambulance services to transport the sick.
The Bicycle Empowerment Network also provides
training and support to help local organizations and
individuals open bike shops of their own. The
businesses sell the recycled bikes at low cost and
provide repair services. Many of the organizations
use the money they earn to help pay for other
community projects.
And that's the VOA Special English Development
Report.
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Hi. I
personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
