The bicycle project

La Mosquitia is cut off from the rest of Honduras by jungle. You get here by small plane, or by spending days in a wooden canoe upriver. The land is flat, the villages are far apart, and there is almost no asphalt. Water, firewood and the week's shopping are carried by hand, often for kilometres.

In a landscape like that, a bicycle is not a convenience. During the rainy season, when the bridges are impassable, it is also the only vehicle that can be carried or floated across a stream, which keeps the villages connected year round.

Where the bikes come from

The bikes are donated. They are collected from recycling stations and private households in Sweden and stored at Ormestorp outside Soderkoping. Before shipping they are partly dismantled, so that as many as possible fit into one container, around 300 per load. On arrival they are reassembled and given a full service by local young people who are employed for the work, which means the skills and part of the money stay in the community.

Who gets them first

The bikes are distributed together with the field team and the communities, in that order of need:

The fire brigades. The teams patrol thousands of hectares of savanna through the dry season. On a bike they reach a fire before it spreads, which protects both the forest and the villages that live from it.

School children. Many children live several kilometres from school, and walking in the heat is why a lot of them stop going. A bike makes the trip there and back possible in the same day.

Families. Everyday journeys, including the trips to Puerto Lempira for trade and healthcare. Where there are no buses, the bike is often the only way to get anywhere.

What a sponsor pays for

The bikes themselves are given. What has to be financed is the freight of a container from Sweden to La Mosquitia, so support goes straight into the logistics that put the bikes on the ground.