One Street News

October 2010

Vol. 3, Issue 9

1. Uganda Social Bike Business Trip
2. Budapest Social Bike Bounding Ahead
3. Resources – San Francisco’s Pavement to Parks
4. Hot Topics – Drama vs. Facts
5. Supporter Spotlight – You! 

Uganda Social Bike Business Trip

By: Sue Knaup, Executive Director 

Planning is in full swing for my first trip to Bwindi, Uganda where I will finally meet our local partners for our Social Bike Business program at Ride 4 a Woman (R4W). Denis Rubalema, Director of R4W, and I have been meeting via email and Skype since December 2009. Through these long distance meetings we’ve gradually worked through priority needs for their bicycle program and set the stage for their long term Social Bike Business program.

The program elements are part of their new women’s community center that will improve the lives of impoverished women in the area, from childcare to job training to obtaining their own bicycle. R4W’s innovative and entrepreneurial spirit is also inspiring our other local partners in other parts of the world.  

Just some of the Social Bike Business program elements I’ll be helping them establish during my trip include:

• partnerships with other bicycle programs and organizations in Uganda;
• a professional bicycle workshop with three work stations;
• train-the-trainers system for on-going bicycle business job training for their staff as well as the thousands of women in the area;
• upgrades to R4W’s current bicycle rental and guide service for tourists, to become a major income generator for their women’s center;
• solutions for bicycle and parts supplies to eventually include local manufacture and assembly of new bicycles.

Budapest Social Bike Bounding Ahead 

Our local Social Bike Business partners in Budapest are also charging ahead with their program after receiving their first grant from Accenture. This new funding is helping them launch the job training component of their program as they seek more supporters for their next priorities. High on their list is a donated building where they can establish their Social Bike Community Center in a distressed neighborhood of the city. Once they have this space, they will expand their bicycle workshop, launch their bicycle donations program, and begin developing their bicycle manufacture area all designed to serve the most disadvantaged people in Budapest.

The Social Bike Business Budapest program also just published a gorgeous two-page handout in English and Hungarian to help them connect with more partners and supporters. The success of this Budapest team and their professionally formatted handouts are inspiring many new local partners in other parts of the world to take on their own Social Bike Business program. 

Resources – San Francisco’s Pavement to Parks

San Francisco’s Pavement to Parks program is one of the most comprehensive street redesign efforts we’ve found. While many cities around the world are rediscovering the benefits of changing speedways into great public spaces, San Francisco has gone one step further by working with business owners and residents to create pleasant pockets for social interaction. We’ve even featured a video about the program’s success on One Street’s home page. 

Hot Topics – Drama vs. Facts

Here in the States we’ve just made it through another political campaign season. The constant barrage of schoolyard insults about people we hardly know has finally left our televisions, radios and other media sources. Political campaigns in all parts of the world have always included misleading attacks on opponents, usually escalating into shocking twists of reality to capture the attention of voters already disgusted by the entire scene. And, unfortunately this tactic still seems to work so we can look forward to more of this playground filth in the next election cycle. 

From our do-good positions as leaders of organizations working to increase bicycling, it would be quite easy to point our fingers at these politicians and chide them for their misbehavior. Instead we need to realize how close we are every day to stepping into this unacceptable zone of exaggeration.

We need to watch ourselves every time we write a funding proposal or appeal to donors. Are we really going to save the lives of THAT many children in one year by providing them bicycles? When grantors and donors ask for reports on how our organizations spent their money, we’ve got to recognize and fight the temptation to expand on our successes and leave out our struggles.  

This adherence to reality will certainly lose each of our organizations a funder or two, just as politicians would lose some voters. But the difference is that our organizations are not fleeting bursts of ridiculous ideas as most politicians are. In fact, our organizations are meant to outlive us. Every exaggeration, every over-dramatic statement chips away at how current and potential supporters see our organizations and can make the difference between them stepping in to help or stepping away, forever. Not only that, our organizations must be the best sources for information on bicycling—both the good and the bad.

So as we grit out teeth and let loose with both sides of the story, we can all take comfort in knowing we’re ensuring a secure future for our organizations and bicycling. And perhaps a bonus for sticking with the facts will be that some day most people can look to our organizations as the sort of truthful reporting they want from the rest of their information sources. We sure can’t wait for politicians or the media to take this role. They’re having too much fun behaving like schoolyard bullies. 

Supporter Spotlight – You!