The Youth Bicycle Project in Diepsloot brings bicycles, vocational
training, and sustainable development planning to a community with
overwhelming poverty, rampant violence, and little hope. The unemployment
rate in Diepsloot is over 60%. People who live there have a hard time
traveling to jobs, because the settlement is located outside of
Johannesburg ­ it takes an hour to drive into city, and at least half an
hour to get into some of the outlying suburbs. In addition, the education
level of many residents means that the only jobs they are qualified to do
are menial, unskilled labor. 

Working in partnership with Bikes Not Bombs, a Boston organization that
has been providing bicycles and training to people in Nicaragua, El
Salvador, Ghana, and many other countries for 20 years, we are shipping
bicycles and training young people in general bicycle repair, vocational
skills, and business management. We are also working with the community to
establish a training facility that will be linked to economic development
opportunities right in the community, to increase self-sufficiency and
make more jobs available where they are needed the most.