Bikes for trees scheme scores big with pupils

Kitui District is often in the news for depressing stories like starvation or death from poisonous brew. But last Tuesday, some residents had reason to smile courtesy of the Japan Bicycle Foundation.

Every year the foundation donates used bicycles to developing nations to make it easier for residents to have access to essential services like education and health care.

By March this year, it had donated 200,000 bicycles to 28 organisations in eight countries. Last Thursday’s event in Kitui made Kenya the foundation’s first African beneficiary.

“The Japanese government has always been concerned with the different challenges that developing countries face over meeting their (UN) Millennium Development Goals. Having worked in other countries in Asia and some parts of Latin America, we felt it was time to come to Africa and lend a hand towards these goals,” Hiroshi Kurokawa, the chairman of the Japan Bicycle Foundation, told the Sunday Nation.

The bicycles are donated to the foundation by individuals in Japan. The foundation then ships them to different parts of the world where it works with local organisations.

In some countries, disadvantaged schoolchildren are the preferred beneficiaries due to the distance separating their homes from schools, hospitals or other social amenities.

In Kitui, the bicycles will also be used in environmental conservation efforts.

“It is not often that the environment and youth are mentioned in the same sentence. Many people think that the environment is not an interesting enough subject to engage the young people, so we had to look for ways to attract the youth into caring for the environment,” said Isaac Kalua, founder of the Green Africa Foundation.

The Japanese and African foundations hope to cycle together towards improving the country’s forest cover.

There is only one string attached to the bicycles: a student must plant two trees before receiving a bicycle; one at school and another at home. The trees are provided by the Green Africa Foundation.

Only needy students from primary and secondary schools qualify to receive the bicycles. The selection of the students is done with the help of the local community and the administrations of the different schools.

“The children not only plant tree seedlings but they unknowingly sow seeds within them that will result in their taking greater care of our environment,” Mr Kalua said. He believes that the younger generation holds the key to combating the current environmental crisis.

Through a gazette notice on Friday, the minister for Regional Development Authorities, Mr Fred Gumo, apppointed Mr Kalua as a board member of the Tana and Athi Rivers Development Authority.

“The youth may just succeed in what past and present generations have failed - in giving better care to our environment,” said Mr Kurokawa, the Japan Bicycle Foundation chairman.

Despite the fact that the bicycles are presented to individual students, they are not theirs for keeps.