Town Mayor, Steve Cox, made this official declaration at Malmesbury’s Citizen of the Year Awards last week. jole rider had been nominated for the Community Group of the Year Award in our home town. jole rider was nominated alongside other Top Geezers, including the wonderful Abbey Bell Ringers, represented on the evening by our own Dick Gray, and the town’s drama company, Athelstan Players. And it was the players who carried off the top prize on the night for their work with young people.
We didn’t make a drama about it, but we really must get our act together next year!!! Well done, Athelstan Players!
Vodafone are once again making a World of Difference to jole rider.
Steve Atyeo has been successful in his application to be funded by Vodafone while he works for jole rider, following Tony Oliver who succeeded in 2011.
Working closely with Saidu Gbla, jole rider’s Education Director in The Gambia, Steve will not only help to improve the lives of young people in Africa but also help young people in the UK to understand how their own actions can have a positive impact on other people 1000's of miles away.
Steve will lead primary and secondary schools in The Gambia and the UK in jole rider’s curriculum-centred “Partner Projects” including Gardening, Renewable Energy, Sports, Fitness and Tourism. Pupils and students work together on these Projects, learning from one another’s approaches, exchanging written and digital work.
Steve will also lead school trips from the UK to The Gambia, and run Teacher Development Workshops for Gambian teachers at the Learning Development Centre.
On the last day of February, the 29th, we packed bike number 10,000 into a sea container for The Gambia.
This very special loading, our 28th, took place outside Dover prison, known correctly as the Dover Immigration Removal Centre.
Detainees, as they are called at the centre run by the Prison Service, have refurbished over 3,000 bikes for the bikes4Africa programme. Dover has been a major partner to the whole programme and the positive effects felt by all are in large measure due to their involvement.
The bikes worked on all originate from the local area. Kent Police and Kent County Council contribute, as well as local Rotary Clubs including Canterbury Sunrise. The model at Dover is very close to being the ideal model for jole rider’s bikes4Africa, with so many sections of society working closely together to change lives. Bikes are also delivered to Dover by jole rider supporters in Luxembourg, making the bikes4Africa programme truly european.
At this, the fifth shipment to be loaded outside the gatehouse at Dover, jole rider’s team was assisted by Centre staff and volunteer inmates from HMP Standford Hill resettlement prison in north Kent.
To mark the occasion and recognise the successful partnership, the event was attended by senior Prison Service staff, including Sarah Pennington and Paul Carroll, and representatives from the UK Border Agency. Also onside were senior staff from Kent Police including Commander Mark Nottage and Community Liaison Officer Mick Cronin. Kent police are a main contributor of bicycles to the programme.
Great big thanks to the Centre Governor and kitchen staff for the celebratory lunch and especially the 10,000th bike cake.
On the last Wednesday of 2011 we will have our End Of Year Celebration. We will be loading our 6th container of the year with bikes, books and education resources for African schools.
And the highlights of 2011 which we will be celebrating include...
So, if you’d like to take a well-earned break from the effort of eating mince pies and watching TV, why not come and join us at the Container Loading? [Between eating more mince pies, and raising a glass or two, we might have you loading a few bikes too.]
As our Bike Mechanic/Engineer you will be a very special person! You will not only know a bike from back to front and inside out, but will have latent capabilities that we will want to uncover, enabling you to grow as a team member acquiring more responsibilities over time. Juggling different tasks across our range of education programmes will be a feature of the role. As our engineer you will be Cytech qualfied, have an ability to train others and can expect to travel in the UK, Europe and Africa. Top notch personal skills and communication skills are essential. Please contact David at jole rider for more information.
Vodafone’s World of Difference programme, enabling charities to employ new people, opens soon.
If you’d like to apply to join jole rider for 2 – 4 months as a paid team member in the UK, and gain valuable experience of working for a charity, please register your interest on the World of Difference website and follow the instructions when the programme opens.
If you have an idea for a project which you believe you could lead as part of our team, please email us telling us how you think you can make a World of Difference to our education work. Your project will need to be completed in 2 months [full time] or 4 months [part time].
We at jole rider are all thrilled that we have another opportunity to benefit from support from Vodafone.
Having been selected by Vodafone’s World of Difference programme earlier this year to become part of jole rider’s team, Tony Oliver is now about to apply for the Vodafone Foundation’s Grahame Maher Award.
If Tony wins this award, jole rider will receive a grant of £100,000 from Vodafone. This grant would be used to develop and implement an exciting new fundraising strategy, centred upon mobile technology, which would enable jole rider to support many more people in changing their lives through education.
On the last Wednesday in July we loaded our 25th sea container, packing in 408 bikes and a whole load of books for African schools.
Our loading team included 20 young people from Hackney Volunteer Police Cadets [VPC]. The Cadets travelled all the way to Hullavington for the day to help us. They also sponsored, and badged, a fleet of 101 bikes. The bikes will all go to the same Gambian school. The bikes were all Mongoose mountain bikes donated by Center Parcs to bikes4Africa.
The sponsorship of these bikes was the first part of Hackney VPC's bikes2Gambia project. The second part involves cadets going out with jole rider to The Gambia next year, to work on bikes and on jole rider's other education projects alongside young Gambians.
Thank you also to Martin, Helen and Ironbridge Rotary Club for the fantastic books.
Thank you, Gillian, for the yummy 25th celebration cake.
Thank you too, Mr A, for helping Hackney VPC raise the funds to sponsor the bikes.
Thank you so very much to the anonymous supporter who recently made a charitable gift of £500 to jole rider. It is gifts just like this which enable jole rider to continue to help African children access education and reach their potential. This is the way to create tomorrow’s teachers, doctors, nurses, researchers, journalists – the people who will find Africa’s own solutions to its problems.
“These kids... they are the future of Africa. It is they who will change their countries, they who will change their continent. Not us, but them. But we can do our bit to help them.” Jon Snow, journalist and presenter
As Mike Pflanz, Daily and Sunday Telegraph journalist, based in Nairobi, writes, appeals for money for disasters averted don’t attract the same attention as disasters developing – or, in East Africa, a disaster which has been allowed to develop. Mike writes: “... I have found that one thing does unite Africa. The thirst for decent education. Refugee mothers in northern Kenya, amputee grandfathers in Sierra Leone, aged Congolese priests and dynamic young Tanzanian engineers, all say the same thing. “School the young properly, let them learn a profession, and they will live a better life than those who came before.”
We at jole rider believe that images on TV, of people suffering the worst drought in over half a century, should not distract us from the real, ongoing disaster in Africa, which is that... Over 72 million children are not going to school. 162 million people cannot read or write. When it comes to being able to protect land and crops against drought and flash flooding, education is essential. Educated people are able to maintain wells and irrigation systems, sustain themselves and their families through agriculture and small-scale trading, and cope with a crisis. Educated people in Africa are also far better equipped to create long-term, sustainable change.
On 06 March 2006 jole rider loaded its first sea container of 303 bikes for school children in The Gambia. We had no thought, then, as to what jole rider would be doing 5 years on.
But 5 years on, jole rider has expanded its involvement with bikes, literacy and education. This month, jole rider will have delivered more than 8,500 bicycles, enabling thousands of children to access education in Africa. Children also have chairs to sit on, books to read and, as a result, better life chances for themselves and their families.
“We cannot believe we have sent 25 containers,” director Helen King explains. “But we regard this as a reasonable start – and, with enough help, the next 25 shouldn’t take as long!”
The LDP [in short] is about injecting valuable learning resources into African schools, linking teachers to share pathways to learning and, not least, hitting curriculum targets through real-life studies - in and outside the classroom - with students and teachers on two very different continents.The Learning Development Project is hugely exciting in its brief, its concept and especially its function - to be a massive boost for education.
Saidu Gbla heads the Learning Development Centre [LDC], the base for the Project, in Sifoe, The Gambia, West Africa.Leading the Project at the African end, Saidu works with the many schools in The Gambia involved with the Project.
Recently the UK based team was strengthened.Steve Atyeo, being an ex-head of Department secondary school teacher, joined the team bringing with him a wealth of experience, together with a passion for teaching and learning development both in the UK and in Africa. Steve acts as Saidu’s counterpart in the UK and will be working with schools - primary, secondary and special – to coordinate their involvement with the Project and their work with partner schools in Africa.
Also on board are Cristina Bennett and Laurie Mansfield. Cristina is also an experienced secondary school teacher, and acts as global education consultant to the team, whilst Laurie, another ex-head of department teacher, heads an Institute of Physics programme to be delivered at Sifoe in partnership with jole rider. Laurie will be working closely with Steve, Saidu and Jide Johnson – head of Science at Sifoe Senior Secondary School - developing science teaching in Gambian schools.
Pictured: from rear - Steve, Saidu, Cristina, Jide and Laurie at the LDC in Sifoe
Poor literacy is almost more damaging than poverty, as the London Evening Standard pointed out recently. Its effect on lives and job prospects can be devastating.
Being able to read well is crucial to African children. Without good literacy skills, they will struggle in lessons, and even more in exams. Not having books to read badly affects their confidence and self-esteem, as well as education achievement.
Well, the pupils at St John's First School and Blaise Primary School have done something small to help with this big problem. The schools held Story Book Days, and each pupil brought one or two of their own books to school to give to us to give to schools in The Gambia. The children chose books they’d enjoyed reading knowing that the book’s new readers would also like the stories.
At St John’s the pupils added their own artwork on the bookplates they put inside the books. At Blaise the children wrote messages about why they liked the books.
Thank you, George – for organising Story Book Day at St John’s – and Rebecca and Katie for helping with the event at Blaise.
Local citizens turned out in their numbers - after turning out their garages - in response to the Keynsham Chew Valley Rotary Club's Bicycle Collection Day for jole rider. Estimates put the total haul at about 30 for the day and a small van was conjured to move them. Well, that haul eventually settled at a BIG 7 0 and panic stations set in!
The van was cancelled and emergency overnight arranged so a BIG truck could be found. And it was - ex Rotarian David Hathaway happens to have a transport business and he volunteered driver Mike to do the business. The 70 bikes were soon delivered and the temporary storage, in a Rotarian's garage, was soon emptied. Club Member Peter Bishop said "it gave us all a warm glow to help jole rider in this way - it was all so worthwhile." Thank you Peter, David and everyone at the Bristol based Rotary Club and of course the people of Keynsham. Thank you too for collecting the shipping money of £10 per bike.
Twice Guinness World Record holder Eddie Sedgemore will be riding a bike from Land's End to Land's End with a brief call-in at John O'Groats. He is doing this to raise money to get children in Africa to school by bike. His fundraising target for jole rider is £10,000
Eddie, who will be in his 70th year when he sets off, aims to ride more than 2011 miles in just 22 days. Mammoth! By doing this he will be breaking his own record for the longest distance travelled on an electric bicycle. We have named this ride "le jole 2011". Keep watch - we will explain why soon.
We call Eddie the Ramblin' Man! Watch out for the release of his promotional video. You can follow him on Facebook
On our last visit to Gambia we were pleased to take with us a quantity of green bags which were kindly donated to us byRWE Npower Renewables Ltd. The bags were given to children in schools. These bags were very popular with the children who are using them as school bags. We are looking forward speak more to the company about renewable energy.
Bike shipment number 24 is on it's way to Africa and it has a record number of bikes packed inside; 421 of them to be precise! As well as this we managed to squeeze in hundreds of bike tyres and inner tubes, 20 classroom tables, a few hundred books, and some stationary. Closing the container doors was a bit like shutting a suitcase after a New York shopping trip.
Loading that many bikes in just a few hours requires an experienced and dedicated team, almost all of whom were volunteers.
Watching those bikes leave our bike station is always a proud moment. In just a few weeks time these bikes will arrive in Africa and be allocated to specific students who live as far as 10 miles from thier nearest school. It's too far to walk but a bike makes all the difference.
Our next loading is very special, number 25, and to celebrate our silver anniversay we will be ordering a silver container! We hope to see you there.
