Shova Kalula

Shova Kalula is an initiative in South Africa to promote cycling in rural communities. I had the privilege of being the client project manager for the pilot projects for this initiative in KwaZulu-Natal in early 2000. The pilots involved setting up a bicycle sales and repair micr-business in a rural community and training up a local entrepreneur to make the business self sustaining. I have posted previously on the initiative in March 2010

On my recent visit to South Africa I was driving past Izingolweni and thought I would see whether the one pilot project is still running. I was very pleased to see that Lucky Ngcobo was still running his shop. When Lucky saw me drive up he greeted me with a big embrace and a question as to where I had been for the last 6 years.

It was very good to see Lucky after so long and see that he is still making his business work despite the obstacles in finding reliable suppliers and avoiding being burgled. He has expanded the business to include doing minor repairs to cars. The business is by no means a fancy operation. He runs it in an old abandoned railway station with no electricity, running water or windows. His customers can barely afford basic necessities, but their bicycles are treasured possessions, as they give them affordable mobility. And this is what makes this business so important. For 13 years Lucky has given the residents of this small town and the surrounding subsistence and commercial farming areas the opportunity to be able to affordably get to school, shops, social services etc. Small subsistence farmers can transport their produce to sell at the bus/taxi rank, or cart fertilizer back to their lands.

Well done Lucky - may you name continue to ring true!

Bicycle portraits

I have previously posted about the South African Bicycle Portraits project of Stan Engelbrecht and Nick Grobler. Well here is an update on the project - a beautiful video portrait of Robert Swartz and his bicycle.

Bicycle Portraits - Robert Swartz from Bicycle Portraits on Vimeo.

Read more about the project here and see more of their videos here.

This sort of project is so vital for bringing cycling to the attention of those at the top of the economic food chain. There is so much more that is needed to make cycling more affordable and safer in Africa.

Pedi Cabs

On weekends you cannot help but notice them around Brisbane. Greencabs are quite a feature around Southbank and the city on weekends, and even during the week now. The Brisbane Times reports that the business has been a success since launching in 2009. Greencabs now run 12 pedicabs on weekends and they now have their own marked cab-ranks near the Treasury Casino and at the top of the Mall.

Pedicabs are popping up worldwide as people embrace 'green' transport and realise that, for short trips, a bicycle delivers competitive journey times. The manufacturer, Main Street Pedicabs, has a blog that gives an idea of how widely pedicabs and bicycle culture have spread in the USA. There are a couple of other pedicab setups in Australia that came up in a Google search - Cairns and Sydney . The international Bicycle Fund has a directory of pedicab and rickshaw companies.
Sydney's fantastically futuristic pedicabs

Bicycle portraits

I have blogged previously about my work in South Africa supporting cycling. It was hard work because there was very little understanding in the planning and engineering industry of the needs of cyclists. Bicycle facilities are thus few and far between and hence there are few brave commuter cyclists out there .
But they are there, and two avid cycle activists and photographers are documenting them in a new book - Bicycle Portraits. It is a beautiful collection of portraits and stories of cyclists and their bikes. Check out the great promotional video here. I loved the music - a Zulu version of Papa was a Rolling Stone.


They are still raising the money to self-publish the book so help them out here.

California Bike

I previously mentioned the Rural Bicycle Initiative I headed up in South Africa from 1998 to 2003 when I was in the kwaZulu-Natal Department of Transport. The project involved the establishment of sustainable bicycle micro-businesses to sell and maintain bicycles in rural areas in South Africa. The concept was first trialed by Afribike in two pilot projects I had the privilege of leading.

In 2001 the Shova Kalula project of the National Department of Transport rolled out the program throughout the country with a promise to distribute 1 million subsidised bicycles by 2015. Through this we established another 10 micro-businesses in kwaZulu-Natal.

The program was hamstrung however by a reliance on donated recycled bicycles from Europe and America. Although this scheme worked reasonably well for the initial small pilot projects it fell apart for the nation wide roll out because the supply of bicycles was not reliable. So cheap mountain bikes were procured and distributed, but they were not popular. The poor standard of the components meant they were wrecks in no time. In 2006 the program started buying California Bikes, a purpose built bike designed for rural communities in Africa.
(picture from Wheels4life)
The Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) designed a hardy 6-speed and single speed bicycle for rural areas that is now the standard bicycle distributed under the Shova Kalula program. It has a steel frame (so that it can be welded to repair or modify), a rack and few accessories and moving parts to minimise maintenance. ITDP have some info on their program to roll out the California Bike throughout Africa.
The bicycles are used extensively for transport in these communities because there is no other option for local trips.(Photo: Maryann Shaw)
I was reminded about the program when I saw some photos of the California Bike (branded Shova Kalula under the South African program) on a friend of a friend's web site. She recently wrote an article for Mobility Magazine on an empowerment. To read the article you need to register on the site.

It is great to see the program still going after almost 10 years at one of our first sites established in kwaJobe, close to Durban. It feels good to have been a part of something great like this.