UNDERPRIVILEGED children in The Gambia have been given a helping hand to get to school, through the generous efforts of students from Chippenham and Bradford on Avon.
An appeal for unwanted bicycles from charity Joel Rider led to students at Abbeyfield School in Chippenham and St Laurence School in Bradford helping to collect nearly 400 bikes.
Some children in The Gambia have to walk up to ten miles to get to school, arriving exhausted and unprepared for study. The bikes will be used to help with the students travel. They have been shipped to Africa this week after being collected at a hangar in Hullavington airfield and will arrive in The Gambia by the end of March.
The charity behind the campaign, Jole Rider, has been active for only 18 months and has been working on the Bikes 4 Africa project for 15 months. The founder of the charity, David Swettenham, 50, said he was delighted at the response to the campaign and hopes to continue the effort.
"There is simply no end. There are thousands of bikes sitting in sheds and there are thousands of children in Africa who need a bike," he said. "We now have almost 400 bikes. At that rate we could send one container a month."
It costs £10 to ship a bike and £3 to restore it to a roadworthy standard. This money needs to be raised through fundraising.
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