We hope this note finds you staying safe and healthy during these trying times. As we all deal with the Covid-19 pandemic, we wanted to let you know how Bikes for the World is adapting and responding. To ensure the wellbeing of our staff, volunteers, and members of the public, we suspended collection and shipping operations in mid-March. As ever, w...

Bikes for the World's involvement in Madagascar began in 2015 when we first supplied a shipment of bikes to the newly established e-box mandroso in Miandrivazo. Specifically the MAHEFA program, a USAID funded community health program administered locally by a network of Malagasy and international organizations, set out with the objective of providi...

Our partner MiBici operates over 200 microfinance credit co-ops in all seven regions of Costa Rica, however, the co-op in Batán is special because it is one of two in the country that is run, staffed and primarily serves women. In the Matina area of the Limón Province, where Batán is situated, the co-op serves an important purpose as a community ce...

 The one constant among the folks we met in Costa Rica was that income diversification was the rule rather than the exception. In the small community of Bambu we met Brauli who primarily supports his family by working as a firefighter in Bri Bri. Beyond that, however, Brauli supplements this work in a number of ways--several of which were pred...

Back in 2011 the Washington Post followed a shipment of donated bikes from Bikes for the World to their destination in Costa Rica. Specifically those bikes ended up in Sepecue and were transported there via small boats on the Rio Telire. While this was not a community that was visited on this trip, there was a more direct connection to the bikes an...

One of the constants in rural Talamanca is the importance of bananas or plantains to nearly every family and individual that we met. Unlike the bananas that you find in your local supermarkets which are generally grown on large plantations owned by multinationals like Dole or Del Monte, the majority of the bananas in Talamanca are grown on small 1-...

When a donated bike ends up in Costa Rica with our partner MiBici it will almost always end up in a relatively rural area where getting around by bike is the most logical and cost-effective transportation option. During my time in Costa Rica I visited several small communities in Talamanca, close to the Panamanian border and well beyond the end of ...

 Everyone knows about bananas and how commonplace they are all over Costa Rica, but what about banana bikes? What is known as a beach cruiser to most of us has simply been dubbed the banana bike in Costa Rica and is the most sought after type of bike in many parts of the country. These bikes are known as bananas because the frames often look l...

Some of the most common questions we're asked are "how is Bikes for the World funded" or "it must be really expensive to ship bikes overseas--how do you do that"? It certainly is true that the costs associated with getting donated bikes, parts, accessories and tools to our partners are not insignificant. This is one of the largest expenses tha...