jole rider [pron. jolly] is an education organisation and registered charity, making positive changes by directly affecting the lives of children.
We do this through our education based programmes, involving
the use of bicycles, enabling African children to get to school,
teaching bike maintenance skills to increase capacity and confidence,
books and resources to offer children more opportunities to learn
and Xperience trips to Africa, to change peoples’ perspective of themselves and others.
Through the education of young people, a Grown-Up Society gains the ability to address successfully all the challenges and difficulties it faces.
Through the education of the young people of Africa, Africa will stand proudly on its own feet, dealing with its own issues, eventually leaving behind all aid and donor concepts.
Just by getting children to school in Africa, Africa will gain exactly what it needs for its sustainable wellbeing, through talented and creative:
Doctors and Nurses
Farmers and Growers
Scientists and Academics
Journalists and Film makers
Entrepreneurs and Leaders
and a discerning population that will determine how it wishes to administer its own affairs.
This change will take some time to unfold but, in the blink of an eye for humanity,
the change we all wish to see, in Africa and the wider world, will come.
The education concept is such a simple one -
- it's also the most rewarding investment any society can make.
"Education is the most powerful tool to change the world"
Nelson Mandela
AND OUR HISTORY
On a visit to The Gambia in November 2004, to test the need for reconditioned bicycles, a chance meeting with Henry Ampro Koromo, a school principal, revealed that long distances and the lack of reliable motor transport was a major barrier to childrens’ education in Africa.
It was this meeting that set the directors, and jole rider, on a course to deliver changes in our world by helping children get the education they and everyone else desires them to get.
In April 2006 the first container of bicycles were delivered to three schools in Western Division, making an immediate impact on the lives of more than 300 children.
Thanks to the investment, help and involvement of schools, volunteers and our partners, by December 2009 more than 5000 lives will have been changed.
