Bicycle transport in Zambia
Practical Action
Disabled Men’s Group
The Disabled Men’s Group has been given a grant to promote AIDS awareness among the
disabled community. This necessitates going into outlying villages to hold workshops – an
expensive activity. At present the Group has some AIDS funding but this will not be
everlasting. To provide funds in the future, the Group has started a business in selling
second hand clothing to their members (2,500 disabled people in the District) and to their
families. The trailer enables members of the Disabled Men’s Group to take the clothes to the
villages thus reaching new markets but more importantly, their members who are unable to
travel to market.
Beneficiaries:
Direct:
Indirect:
Realistically 200 disabled people able to purchase clothes for themselves
Income generating activity to support AIDS awareness
programmes in the future
Mthuzi Women’s Group
This is a group of around 70 women living around one village. In Zambia, women are the
main workers in the fields where they dig, plant, weed and harvest the family’s crops, all by
hand. The men usually take the crops to market; they keep the cash only giving their wives a
little money for food and other household needs. While the main crop is maize for
processing into meal meal for nshima, the women also grow ground nuts, soya beans, beans
and vegetables.
The bicycle trailer is used for transporting their excess produce to market and for taking goods
from town back to the village. Unusually, in the Mthuzi Group it is the women ride the
bicycles pulling the trailer – about 5km. This means the women take the goods to market
and control the cash.
The Mthuzi Women’s Group has learned the added value that can be given to crops by
processing. For example the women have been making peanut butter for some time and
selling it in plastic bags to villagers and around offices and other businesses in Lundazi town.
A bowl of ground nuts, as ground nuts is worth K1,000; if made into peanut butter and put
into plastic bags it is will sell for K2,000; if sold in a plastic jar it is will sell for K5,000 (the
jar costs K600). [$1 = K5,000] I was able to obtain 500 plastic jars with lids for the group
so the profit on the peanut butter was immediately doubled.
The trailer enables the Group to make a large batch of peanut butter which can be
transported to town where sales have considerably increased with the better presentation of
the product. The trailer can also hold vegetables and other produce – a travelling market stall
taken round the offices, council buildings and other customers.
The Group runs as a co-operative particularly assisting those most in need at any given time.
There are a high number of widows, single orphans and double orphans supported by the
Group. One of the problems for the children has been high cost of school uniform which is
required by most Government schools in Zambia. The profits from the increased peanut
butter sales have been used to purchase a sewing machine and some fabric. The women are
now able to make school uniforms at little or no cost for orphans. They are also making other
household items for sale to generate more income.
Beneficiaries:
Direct:
Indirect:
70 women gain economic independence through income generating activities
70 households have higher standard of living; 280 individuals have better nutrition
Children, particularly orphans, able to attend school
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