April 1, 2006

Happy April Fool’s Day!

Probably not an auspicious day to make two transcontinental flights, 
but here I am, sitting in the Amsterdam airport, waiting for the plane 
to board to Washington.  I’ve just finished my trip to the GCI South 
Africa office, where we had a site visit from the Rockefeller Brothers 
Fund, one of the major funders of the Diepsloot Bikes project.  The 
site visit went well – all the project staff did a great job.

The project is working with the South African Small Enterprise 
Development Agency (SEDA) to get more training in business management, 
and eventually Diepsloot Bikes will be a stand-alone cooperative 
business, with a continuing relationship with GCI South Africa for the 
training elements of the program, which will need ongoing financial 
support.  Over the last year, the bike shop has managed to raise more 
than half of the operating capital it needs from bike sales – an 
excellent beginning for a start-up business in one of the most 
impoverished areas of the Gauteng province.   

We’re also going to be working on a new initiative for the project – 
bicycle powered battery charging services.  Many people in the 
townships and informal settlements depend on car batteries for their 
electrical needs, and so you can find small battery charging services 
throughout the area, for a fee.  With a bicycle powered battery 
charger, Diepsloot Bikes will be able to provide the same service at a 
lower cost, and this will provide the bike shop with a steady source of 
regular revenue.  I have found the kind of generator they need to do 
this – it’s made in Burlington, VT, of all places.  The rig will cost 
$700 to bring to Diepsloot on my next trip – contributions toward it 
are welcome.

Collins, the project manager, has been doing a great job pulling all 
the pieces together to make Diepsloot Bikes a successful small 
business.  One of his recent ideas was to get the local casino to 
donate t-shirts and hats to the project – they’ll be selling these 
items along with the special chairs they make out of old inner tubes 
and broken wheel rims to supplement the revenues they get from the sale 
of bicycles.

But the best part of the trip by far was to see all the children that 
flock to the bike shop.  They come to see the staff, to get their flat 
tires fixed, to stand in the container that serves as the bicycle 
showroom and gaze longingly at the nice new BMX bicycles on display.  
One very small boy dragged his Mom to the shop yesterday, which was the 
last Friday of the month – payday for most of the people in Diepsloot.  
She left promising to come back on Saturday to buy him a bicycle.  He 
was a little too small to understand delayed gratification, and left in 
tears.  But today he’ll be happy.

Thanks so much for your interest in our projects.  

All the best, Gwen.