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Pedal power at Armagh Rotary Club

Thursday, 12 January 2012

Armagh Rotary Club members, Ian Donaldson, Harry Carson, Kevin Boyd and Maria McGilly with their large collection of used bikes the public have kindly donated for to be fixed up and sent on to Gambia.

UNWANTED bicycles donated from kind hearted people in the Armagh area are set to make it hundreds of miles across the world to children less fortunate in Africa.
Around 70 bicycles were donated to Armagh Rotary Club during a three week campaign before Christmas, which is aiming to provide bikes to young people in the Third World country of Gambia.
The bicycles collected in the Armagh area are set to be shipped across the Irish sea to a Liverpool prison in early April, where prisoners will repair and restore them, before they are transported on to needy secondary school children in one of the nation's poorest countries.
Speaking to the Ulster Gazette, Armagh Rotary Club past president, Harry Carson admitted everyone had been overwhelmed by the response witnessed from members of the public.
Mr Carson explained collecting the bikes had been the brainchild of Trevor Stewart, from Lisburn Rotary Club, who had encouraged members to collect 10 bicycles for an African project he is involved with.
Following a successful appeal to the community, donations soared and Rotarians are delighted that young people in the poverty-stricken country are now set to benefit from the bikes.
And that success has been further added to, with Armagh Rotary Club being the first in Northern Ireland to donate bicycles to Mr Stewart's project.
Mr Carson said everyone at Armagh Rotary Club is "chuffed" to be able to assist with the appeal, which he said has given members a wee bit of self-satisfaction.
“Through his African appeal, Trevor has been round quite a lot of clubs in Northern Ireland appealing for bikes and we have the honour of being the first club to provide him with them.
“We put an ad in the paper and from that we got about 70 bicycles - some donated one, others had two and one person in particular had 20 bikes, so we have those collected now and stored at Richhill and Caledon," explained Mr Carson.
“The 20 bicycles were donated from a man in Markethill, who was part of Project Romania and had been collecting bikes for that, but something had gone wrong and he wanted the bikes to go to a good home.
“We had donations of bikes from all over the district, including Keady, Markethill, Darkley and, of course, Armagh.
“Pat Harrison, one of our Rotarians, and Kevin Boyd took the list of people who volunteered to donate bikes and called with the people and collected them.
“We don't need any more bicycles. We were not overly hopeful at the start but we were overwhelmed by the support we got from folk.
“Trevor is hoping to get them off in a container on the first weekend in April. We also have to provide £10 to him per bike in order to cover transport costs.
“It is such a great cause, as it will cut down the travelling time of the children and enable them to be more refreshed by the time they get to school.
“Some of the children in Gambia have to walk an hour-and-a-half to get to school each day, so that's what the bikes are for - the secondary school kids.
“If they were to walk an hour-and-a-half, surely they will only have to cycle about half an hour and they will be in a better frame of mind when they arrive at school.
“It's not often you get projects where you actually can do something positive that you see, as most of our work involves collecting and distributing money for good causes.
“Trevor is talking about having this on an annual basis, so we will wait and see what happens," added Mr Carson.

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