Bikes Not Bombs

Bikes Not Bombs
Roxbury, Massachusetts

Bikes Not Bombs takes it to the streets!

In Roxbury...

The Bikes Not Bombs (BNB) Recycling and Youth Training Center, now in its fourth year, has established itself as a vital community resource in the Egleston Square neighborhood, Roxbury - a part of Boston, MA USA.

Programs include:

Youth Leadership Program

Earn-a-Bike

Instructor Training and Teen Vocational Programs

Our teen employees staff a bike repair facility as part of their training program. We also offer recreational rides for al ages and Wednesday Night open house when bikes are repaired or prepared for resale - with volunteers learning new bike mechanic skills.

We are helping young people become leaders.

Programs reach an at-risk population, providing employment for 15 neighborhood residents serving over 100 young people a year. In addition to gaining job skills, young people are building self-esteem, getting involved in community health issues, and shouldering personal and collective responsibility, while learning problem solving skills and teaching bike safety, environmental awareness and bike repair.

The Center was created with enormous collaboration between neighbors and friends, community agencies, city government support, foundation grants and most-of-all grassroots fundraising.

In Nicaragua and Haiti...

Nicaragua

Bikes Not Bombs has worked in Nicaragua for 13 years. We have sent over 13,000 bikes to the country and we continue to provide training, as well as send bicycles, parts and tools to get new projects started.

This year we collaborated with Solidez, a Nicaraguan development agency who work to integrate disabled people into the economic and social life of their country. With Solidez, we helped BiciCarga, a collective of young disabled people, to start a small cargo bike manufacturing facility. BNB also continues to ship recycled bikes to CORABIC, the only cooperatively owned bicycle shop in the country.

Haiti

In Haiti, BNB has teamed up with the Peasant Movement of Papat (MPP - Haiti's largest peasant organization) to start our first bicycle development project in a rural township of Haiti. Since 1973, MPP has developed farming cooperatives, literacy training, and many other programs to improve the lives of peasants.

BNB has sent 1000 urgently needed bicycles and tons of parts for an MPP project that provides jobs and transportation for MPP organizers and others. The sales of the bikes are a source of employment for six Haitian peasants who have formed a cooperatively run bike shop and training center.

BNB will continue its support for MPP's work through further material aid and technical assistance to the community and Community Bicycle Project.