Nokia have kindly provided Kona Basic Needs with two Nokia N86 camera phones to use in our prize draw to help raise funds for Kona Basic Needs and our future projects.
Each ticket costs 1 euro, the more you buy the more chance you have of winning and the better you will feel donating to Kona Basic Needs.
Click HERE to head to the Kona Store and buy your tickets.
Thanks to generous donations and Kona’s AfricaBike ‘ 2-for-1′ program, we are in the midst of planning another great year of AfricaBike handovers in Africa. Who’s excited? Well, we certainly are.
So check out the projected dates below and mark your calendars for what is sure to be another successful year of AfricaBike projects. This year, recipients will include both health care workers and rurally located students who would otherwise be unable to attend school due to mammoth walking distances. If you’re unable to make a trip this year, you can always help out by donating at KonaBasicNeeds.
The third project listed will be the first of its kind for the Kona AfricaBike program. Recently, we were graciously approached by HopeFirst to partner for a project in Gambia to donate 300 AfricaBikes to students in rural areas. The bikes will belong to the school and loaned to the boys and girls that travel the farthest to school. Also, 135 bikes will be donated to a village with 135 children who would go to school if they could just get there. Above is HopeFirst’s donation check for 150 AfricaBikes; and they plan on donating 50 more. Excellent!
Stay tuned as more breaking news will be announced here in the future.
Outside’s Gear Girl, Stephanie Pearson, highlighted the Kona AfricaBike as one of the “Best of Winter Gear” items. Noting the AfricaBike program’s aim to provide bikes to home healthcare workers in sub-Saharan Africa and how the AfricaBike is perfect as a commuter rig, the Gear Girl applaudes all the work that’s being done.
Ever wonder where exactly the Kona AfricaBike and Kona Basic Needs have been in Africa?
In an effort to bring the projects in Africa a little closer to home, we’ve created a Google map that highlights all of the places the AfricaBike project and Kona Basic Needs has made an impact since we began in 2006. Don’t worry, we won’t test you, just think of it as a complementary resource to our reports about, say, the handover in the Gamalahke Township, South Africa.
Not only does the map’s directory point you to the exact location of Orange Farm, South Africa, for example, but it also gives you a little background about the respective project and how many AfricaBikes were donated.
So check out the site HERE. Further updates will be made to the map throughout 2010.
MODSquad Cycles, the only bicycle shop in Harlem, will honor Black History Month by donating 10% of its February 2010 revenue to Kona AfricaBike and Project Rwanda. In support of the shop’s initiatives, Kona Bikes has offered to donate an AfricaBike for a raffle in which customers who purchase at least $10 at the store will be entered.
Owner Oyé Carr says, “AfricaBike combines capitalism with good works. For every two bikes purchased by Kona retailers, Kona donates a bike to an AIDS worker. Bikes are not just for sport. They are also a means of environmentalism and a source of social change.”
Kona would like to give a big shout out to MODSquad Cycles for reaching out to the Kona AfricaBike program and the global community this month. If you live in or around the area, stop in and enter the raffle to win an AfricaBike or check out the selection of AfricaBike t-shirts - where all process go to Kona Basic Needs.
Last September, BikeTown Africa donated and built 268 Kona AfricaBikes in 48 hours for health care workers of an organization called CATHCA, which educates and cares for those afflicted by HIV/AIDS. The handover took place in Orange Farm, South Africa. To read more about the donation click HERE.
As always, if you would like to help donate more Kona AfricaBikes, click HERE.
In March, Kona Basic Needswill be heading to the township of Gamalakhe in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa to donate 10 Kona AfricaBikes to the Gamalakhe Development Center.
The center provides day care for 35 children between 2 to 5 years old who come from families unable to fully provide for the children - whether due to economic reasons or HIV/AIDS challenges.
Also, the center feeds 90 school children before and after school. Additionally, those children have the option of receiving help with their school work.
School teachers and illiterate adults use the center as well for its educational programs, sewing classes and gardening schemes.
The AfricaBikes will be given to the volunteers and full-time staff members of the organization to shuttle children and supplies to the center, making their operations run more effectively.
To help send AfricaBikes and more, click HERE to donate.
On December 16th, South Africa’s Day of Reconciliation, Kona Basic Needs donated 7 Kona AfricaBikes to sister Priscilla and her fellow health workers at the Holy Cross Aids Hospice in Ginginglovo, South Africa. Surrounded by sugar cane fields in northern Zululand, the hospice focuses on caring for those living with HIV/AIDS or victims of families that have been affected by the disease. 
Not only does the hospice provide treatment to patients and dignity to those facing death, they have refurbished old stables and a dairy to provide pre-school for the 120 orphan kids by the disease in the immediate area.
The hospice’s healthcare workers cover an area of 50 square kilometers (on foot) and assist over 2,000 families living with HIV/AIDS, including 1,000 child-led households of which both parents are unable to provide care due to the disease. The bikes will be used to help the care givers travel to the really sick patients in their homes, increase the number of visits, monitor ARV and medication dosages and greatly improve the delivery of food.
Click here to donate or get involved.
Last week, a team of 17 people arrived inKibaha, Tanzania and assembled 130 Kona AfricaBikes in one day - World AIDS Day. The volunteers, including Travis Stork of the US talk show The Doctors, then spent two more days handing over the AfricaBikes to the beneficiaries, INDIGO, CYDI and KIKODET who promote voluntary HIV counseling and testing.
Despite transportation set-backs, the handover of AfricaBikes took place this morning in Bukoba, Tanzania. Instead of making the TADEPA healthcare workers wait until January to recieve AfricaBikes, BikeTown Africa decided to go ahead with the building of the bikes regardless of transportation issues. As a result, the local ‘fundis’ will build the bikes on the shores of Lake Tanzania.
Today there are 33 million people living with HIV/AIDS. An estimated 2 million people died from AIDS in 2008. Of those 2 million, 35,000 babies and 330,000 others died prematurely of AIDS in South Africa due the government’s delay in providing treatment.
Today, however, strides have been made by South African President, Jacob Zuma, to alleviate those without access to treatment in South Africa. In conjunction with WORLD AIDS Day, President Zuma announced today in a national address that the drug therapy reach for HIV positive pregnant woman and babies would widen. As South Africa has more people infected with AIDS than any other country (5.7 million), these initiatives mark a major step in the right direction for South Africa and the overall fight against HIV/AIDS.
The Kona AfricaBike has aided hundreds of HIV/AIDS healthcare workers in South Africa to help treat patients in rural areas since the inception of the program in 2006. Since then, we have donated more than 2,500 AfricaBikes to more than 10 countries in Africa – including more than 600 this year. With hopes of having the opportunity to contribute hundreds more in 2010, we aspire to continue to assist in expediting the healing/distribution process for HIV/AIDS patients throughout Africa.
