Was watching BBC News (courtesy of FTA) last evening when this short feature came up of Ghanaians making rather nice bikes from bamboo. Apparently, the material is stronger yet lighter than some of those metals used and demand is now so high the guy featured has had to expand faster than he had anticipated.
Additionally, they say bamboo is eco-friendly as the plant produces much more oxygen than most other trees while helping minimize the greenhouse effects of CO[SIZE=2]2[/SIZE]. There’s even a UN Climate Change program that has adopted the same.
The Ghana Bamboo Bikes Initiative addresses climate change, poverty, rural-urban migration and youth unemployment by creating jobs for young people, especially women, through the building of high quality bamboo bicycles. Compared to the production of traditional metal bicycles, bamboo bikes require less electricity and no hazardous chemicals. Not only are the bikes light and stable, they can handle rough terrain and can carry large farm loads and passengers. The initiative has support from the GEF Small Grants Programme (GEF SGP), implemented by the United Nations Development Programme.
Bamboo bike making technology has been transferred to two other communities, employing 25 rural women who sell the frames to the Ghana Bamboo Bikes Initiative’s supply chain. The Initiative is talking to investors and potential funders to scale up the project, both in size and impact.
[SIZE=7]GOOD WORK[/SIZE]
However, I would thoroughly enjoy watching the producer writhe in pain after I shoot him with a poisoned arrow. All these so called sustainable development initiatives serve no other purpose than satisfying the academic curiosity of western “experts”. Find out about the cost of the bike and you will wish to see the financiers as far away from Africa as possible. If they truly want to help, they should finance Ghanaians to set up workshops that churn out conventional bikes. In the meantime, the West can enjoy bamboo bikes in Europe as much as they want, after all they have already ruined their share of the environment.
Nice…seems like a good bike. However he should use some photos of actual people riding yaani follow a group of riders on a really long and treacherous checki maneno to prove its durability
