Currently, we are investigating communities around Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, for the next location. Movement Bikes will also slightly change its business model. We will partner with specific communities for tailored deliveries. That way, we supply the need and demand, rather than working in just one permanent community. Further, we will have a unique design for each project. What Kenya has shown to us, is that we did our homework diligently before the bikes arrived. The container moved through customs swiftly, and the bikes storage was waiting for the container to arrive. Movement Bikes has an exciting future, and we look forward to the arrival of our bikes in Burkina Faso.

We understand that individuals’ lives don’t always go as planned. In the passed months there have been  unforeseen financial burdens, work changes, and deaths. Yet, Movement Bikes understands that there are bumps in the roads. So far, we have overcome all challenges and have had only positive reports about the product. Working closely with our customers is extremely important to us, and we value relationships and feedback.

Just like Muhammad Yunus’s Grameen Bank, people thought such work would be too risky. We are happy to follow those footsteps, and work with individuals no matter their background. We believe it to be a great success to be ahead of payment schedules and to have affected so many lives positively.

A different story is working across the globe. Skyping is a possibility, and exchanging emails with information is quick and easy. But what about Africa, where electricity (let alone internet) is difficult to have?! Surely, in big cities anywhere in the world you can find computers, internet, and the like — but working intercontinentally with Africa is still an exciting challenge.

Movement Bikes has rolled out it’s initial deliveries, and is now focusing on gathering data on its product. The OGRA Foundation is monitoring individuals that have received bicycles in the hopes to analyze the value bicycles bring from an economic perspective. Other partners are providing updates as well, adding to the large number of feedback we have already received on the products. Enjoy an overview of our new partnerships and important events from the summer in our Pilot Project Media Report.

On a recent tour through some villages, we visited one of OGRA’s health clinics some 50 km from Kisumu. Around that area, the sense of peace and simple life encourages a real stillness of the mind. There are birds singing far in the distance, and you might hear some water running close by, but besides that, it’s only the branches that move with the breeze. We met farmers that run sugarcane plantations, and people planting maze. Next to the farms, you find the small homes that have been built out of wattle and daub. The cookers are carefully placed over little fires that still smolder from the night before. There are small buckets of water in the corners, and if you look around, you often spot a bicycle leaning on the backside of the house.

Such life is very simply. But it’s more than that; it’s idyllic and peaceful. The relationship to your neighbor is not confined to discussing politics; there are real issues like snakes in the farms that are topic of discussion. Kenyans value and depend on the people living close to them, which is why villagers have such strong bonds.

I heard the story about 10,000 farmers working for a sugarcane factory, which unfortunately was closed some 20 years ago. Although people lost their jobs and had no place to go, they simply stayed on their land. Many years later, the formerly clean roads are deteriorating, and the factory is rusting in the distance. Hardships come in many forms, but people survive and support each other.

The countryside demonstrates Kenya’s greatest amount of poverty and disparity, but it also offers a peaceful life that can’t be found in hectic cities. Sometimes having less can be having a lot more.

Silverline is a reknown Toyota dealer and service location in Kisumu. Originally introduced through Sunit Patel in Colordo, his brother Sunay and family have been taking care of us in Kenya. We highly recommend their fair and high quality service to anyone in need of vehicle assistance.

Today, we had the great honor and joy to present Sarah Obama with a brand new bicycle named after her. The Kisumu Sister City Committee helped with transportation and delivery, and we were able to tell her about the various programs we have been doing in Kisumu. We discussed with her how we can carry the project forward, and how we can empower the most people in the future. It’s always a delight to meet with Sarah Obama.

The more I think about this concept of inalienable needs and identities; there more I believe that each and every country is the perfect home. I believe that when one travels, the goal should be to discover something new in hat culture, and ultimately render this difference beautiful. Concepts that once may have been strange will swiftly turn into something wonderful after some understanding.

After traveling to India, I had gained a new perspective of arranged marriages, and started appreciating that culture. In Dubai, I loved morning prayers and certain Islamic traditions. In Kenya, the happy culture of handshakes and life-enthusiasm is a reflection of people’s attitudes. On the street, a white person is constantly being greeted. At first, one is skeptical because you might think that all these strangers want to make friends with you, and ultimately benefit through you. But after a while, you begin to see the same openness in the business culture, and between African strangers.

Consider a funeral in Kenya for instance. A blend of weeping relatives walk together with cheering and dancing friends, dressed in bright colors, and smiling happily. Grief is part of death, certainly, but as is the appreciation that the loved one had been with us. That appreciation is expressed with joy, despite the pain people feel.

Whichever the reason we travel, the beauty our planet has to offer is limitless. It is between our differences that we find room to grow and appreciate. Never mind the few days off at the beach resort, that’s a vacation. Travel though, is like a mirror in which we can see ourselves in different colors and different backgrounds, and we get to find the angle that we like best. I have traveled the world forward and backwards, and yet I think that I still underestimate the power, and beauty, of exploring cultures.

Coincidentally, the World Bicycle Relief warehouse is located about 20 meters from our own assembly spot. WBR is the largest bicycle relief organization in the world, having supplied over 70,000 bicycles since its inception in 2004. The vision was coined by F.K. Day, one of the SRAM Co-Founders. The bicycles are high-quality, robust vehicles with a design people are very familiar with. People on the streets recognize the double-top tube, and the black color that is often associated with Phoenix bikes. Their are proven work-horses, and enjoy a reputation for durability.

No organization has created the perfect bicycle yet. And even WBR is continuing to improve their product line, switching production facilities in Asia, and changing the design on their bikes. The ultimate question though isn’t about how many bikes has one organization brought to developing countries, or what their bike looks like — but rather how we can ultimately benefit the people we want to serve the very most?

In the for-profit sector, competition is good, because it drives innovation and brings down the price for consumers. In the NGO world, we should seek collaboration. Profit isn’t the goal, but the best product at the lowest cost.

Bringing prices down can be achieved through ways other than competition. Sharing product lines, coordinating shipments, sharing teaching methods and technologies, or giving advice on microfinance or mechanics trainings; this is a sample of all the sectors where the developing world would be the ultimate beneficiary. And yet, this crowded world of NGO efforts is competitive, because of branding and sharing resources. Any NGO, whichever sector it may be, is competing for grants and resources, believe in their own vision, and take ownership over their work. All these factors make collaboration difficult, because when one’s brand is swallowed up by a different organization, the association of one’s work is often erased as well. In the end then, collaboration would ultimate help people, because rather than competing for markets and resources, we bundle our efforts and multiple our brain-power.

Wouldn’t it be amazing to put 30 leading bicycle initiatives into one room, lock them all in there, until they have created a culture of collaboration, not competition? Wouldn’t this be a flagship success for other NGO sectors as well?

If the work that we do is about humility, and service of those that truly need it, then there is no alternative but to find ways to work together. Perhaps zyOzy has the answer to creating a new dialogue. In the end, this work is not about us; it’s about the people we serve.

We have made agreements to start a microfinance project in the rural areas of Kisii in Western Kenya in Partnership with Co-Operative Bank. Providing youth with new opportunities through micro-finance .

Over the next weeks, we will keep you updated on the rollout of our bicycles, and how the microfinance in partnership with Co-Operative Bank is affecting locals.