by Cameron Kennedy
Red Deer Advocate
Hundreds of Kenyan students burst into peals of laughter as they watch classmates and teachers learn to cycle at Kiprengwe Primary School.
Some of the riders — less than a dozen in all — take to the small, black Afrikid bicycles, during the now-not-so-secret cycling lesson, like ducks to water.
Others lurch and swerve, wobble and wipe out as they try to navigate the lumpy hilltop field.
Amidst the barely controlled chaos, Kelly MacVicar and Melissa Farahat are doing all they can to prop up one female student, dressed in one of the school’s ubiquitous forest green sweaters and peacock blue dresses.
She spends more time riding the coaster brake than pedalling forward during the lesson, much to the Canadian women’s chagrin.
The cycling lesson was a highlight of a recent mission to Kenya for MacVicar and Farahat, who donated 205 Afrikid and AfricaBike bicycles to Kiprengwe Primary and Chepseon Secondary schools on May 11.
The women raised more than $50,000 to buy the bikes, which were delivered to Kenya with the help of a Lacombe-based international development agency, A Better World.
“We’ve had some challenges, but today definitely made it all come together and worthwhile,” said MacVicar, relaxing back at the hotel after meeting with school officials to finalize the bike distribution plan.
“It was a little overwhelming to actually see them ride the bikes,” added Farahat, a touch sunburned but still exuberant. “It felt really good.”
The mission by MacVicar and Farahat to Kiprengwe was actually their second visit to the small, rural community, located about three hours northwest of Kenya’s capital, Nairobi.
MacVicar, a 27-year-old human resources officer who grew up in Sylvan Lake, and Farahat, a 28-year-old legal assistant from Airdrie, met on A Better World mission to Kenya in 2009.
MacVicar’s mother, a high school teacher at H. J. Cody High School in Sylvan Lake, had helped raise money to build classrooms at Kiprengwe Primary. MacVicar tagged along to attend the grand opening ceremony.
Farahat was looking for adventure when she signed up. She had heard about A Better World through a friend and contacted the organization to see if there was a trip available.
While visiting Kiprengwe in 2009, MacVicar and Farahat noted just how far some of the students had to walk to attend school, and the effect all that walking had to have on their studies.
“It’s pretty striking to think the students are going to school from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., and then they are walking five, 10, 15 km a day to and from school,” said MacVicar.
“And having to walk home at lunch,” added Farahat.
MacVicar and Farahat stayed in touch after the trip and tried to figure out how they could help. About a year later, Farahat brought an advertisement for Kona’s Basic Needs program to MacVicar’s attention over coffee.
The goal of the bicycle manufacturer’s program is to donate Kona AfricaBikes to organizations and individuals who can benefit from a bicycle. For ever two bikes purchased from Kona, the company donates a third.
The idea to give bicycles to Kiprengwe’s students was born.
“We thought, ‘That’s perfect. That’s how we can give back to the community,’” said Farahat.
The women emailed Kona and the company climbed on board the project immediately.
Farahat said the original goal was to give Kona’s AfricaBikes to every student at Kiprengwe, all 530 of them.
But Kona suggested Kiprengwe’s students would be too small to ride its adult bike. It offered to design a smaller version of its AfricaBike that would be suitable for rough, hilly terrain around the school.
Eight months later, Kona unveiled the Afrikid bike, a mix between one of its AfricaBikes and a children’s mountain bike. The Afrikid bike has rugged tires and three gears to tackle Kiprengwe’s hills, and it comes with a child-friendly basket and book holder.
“They are durable and low maintenance, that’s the idea of the Afrikid bike,” said MacVicar.
Designing a mountain bike specifically for Kiprengwe’s terrain was the first of many obstacles that MacVicar and Farahat navigated during the two-and-a-half year project.
Neither was an avid cyclist, nor did they know much about fundraising, event marketing, volunteer leadership or import/export regulations.
Simply shipping the bikes to Kenya from Kona’s manufacturer in Cambodia took about a year to pull off, and it cost a lot more than expected.
“For the past two and a half years, it has been a total roller-coaster. We wanted to give up a lot of times,” said Farahat, who estimated she sent about 2,000 emails about the shipping arrangements alone.
“We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into until it was too late to back out.”
But the women persevered — with “a ton of support from friends and family.”
Their first fundraiser, a mountain bike race at Canmore Nordic Centre in September 2011, drew about 40 racers and raised about $10,000. Donations continued to slowly roll in over the next year or so.
A silent auction and live music night in early 2013 finally put them over the top.
Don Yeun, an investment advisor from Calgary, collected enough sponsors to buy six bikes at that first fundraiser in Canmore. Earlier this year, he received an email from MacVicar and Farahat, who were looking for volunteers to assemble bikes in Kenya. It was a little short notice, but Yeun said he and his wife, Heather, thought that it sounded like a great way to go to Africa.
The Yeuns were among eight Canadian volunteers, mostly friends or friends of friends, who travelled to the East African country with the women to help assemble the bikes, which took about two and a half days to complete.
Yeun said there were a few minor problems with the bikes, but for the most part they looked pretty rugged and the assembly process went smoothly.
“We actually had a couple of (local) bike mechanics that came and helped out,” he said. “Without them I think we would not have got it done Friday night.”
Yeun said the biggest challenge facing the project down the road was normal wear and tear.
Based on his experience riding mountain bikes over similar terrain, the Afrikid bicycle tires should last 3,000 to 5,000 km.
If the students rode their bicycles 15 to 20 km daily, the tires would last only two or three years, said Yeun.
That means there would be a whole slew of tires that would need to be replaced at once. The front brake pads would also wear out sooner than later.
“I’m not saying that A Better World has to buy all this stuff, like new pads or tires, but somewhere, someone has to be budgeting for it,” said Yeun, who planned to raise his concerns with MacVicar and Farahat.
MacVicar and Farahat’s dream to deliver bicycles to Kenya was not without its skeptics.
One of those was Eric Rajah. Co-founder of A Better World, Rajah admitted he was very apprehensive about the project when the women first approached him about getting involved. He questioned whether giving bikes to Kiprengwe students was even one of the community’s priorities. His other concerns included whether the bikes would be stolen, sold to feed a hungry family or promote bullying at the school.
As the project gathered momentum, Rajah wondered whether the bikes would make it to Kenya at all, how they would be secured until MacVicar and Farahat’s team arrived, where the bikes would be assembled, and how they would be distributed.
“I know we cannot even run a medical clinic without people pushing and shoving,” said Rajah before the trip, fearing a similar outcome at Kiprengwe.
MacVicar and Farahat were determined to avoid an ugly scene on delivery day.
At Rajah’s urging, they met with principals of Kiprengwe Primary and Chepseon Secondary schools to hammer out a distribution plan ahead of time.
All the parties involved agreed the bikes would be owned by the schools, which would give them to Grade 7, 8 and 9 students and teachers who had to walk at least five km to school. Each school also received a few bikes for their phys ed programs.
The women also sought assurances from the principals that the bike project would continue to operate in the years to come.
MacVicar said she left the meeting feeling reassured that their dream was actually going to make a difference in the lives of Kiprengwe students.
So did Rajah.
He said MacVicar, Farahat and their team worked extremely hard and cleared a lot of speed bumps along the way. Improving access to education appeared to be one of the community’s priorities after all, but only time would tell how they navigated around those obstacles.
“I’ll do a follow up in July and see how many bikes are actually in place and working,” said Rajah. “That will be the ultimate test.”
School officials, who received only two days’ notice before the bikes arrived, were surprised but thrilled to receive the bicycles.
David Kikwai, principal of Kiprengwe Primary, called the bicycles a very thoughtful gift.
Many Kiprengwe students had to travel a long way to reach the school, he said, and the bicycles should help them to continue to improve their performance on tests.
Kikwai said he believed the bike program would be sustainable because students, teachers, parents and the community had a stake in its success. Parents would be responsible for keeping the bicycles in good repair. If a bike was stolen, the parents would be responsible for replacing it, he said. Abraham Rutto, the district education officer, said the bicycle project was one of a kind.
Transporting children to school was a challenge faced by many communities in the region, since most families could not afford to buy motorbikes. The bicycles would help Kiprengwe students save time and energy, which they could spend on doing their assignments, he said.
Rutto added his only worry was that the project would only benefit two schools when there were so many facing similar challenges.
He said he hoped parents in neighbouring communities would emulate the project at their schools.
MacVicar wouldn’t rule out doing another project down the road.
“At the end of the day, we are both very committed to supporting A Better World in one way or another, whether it be another bike project or something else,” she said.
Dozens of Kenyan students burst into song as four large trucks tightly packed with bicycles arrive at Chepseon Secondary School for the official delivery ceremony.
Storm clouds roll menacingly overhead as the bicycles are unloaded, creating a black carpet of handle bars, seats and tires along the school’s fenceline.
The appreciative speeches end with a clap of thunder and a trickle of lucky rain that quickly becomes a torrent, forcing the volunteers to take cover under the school’s narrow eaves as they distribute the bikes.
Some of the students immediately push their bikes to the top of the school’s hill and ride them down, splashing through the pools of water forming in the field below.
Like ducks to water.