| Jay Ritchey Serving Rwandan Coffee Growers Through The Coffee Bike |
.gif) Project Rwanda is excited to announce that the University of Texas A&M’s SPREAD program has hired Jay Ritchey to be the “coffeebike” project manager for SPREAD and Rwandan coffee growers. SPREAD (Sustaining Partnerships to enhance Rural Enterprise and Agribusiness Development) seeks to help Rwandan coffee farmers earn more by entering the more lucrative specialty coffee market. To achieve this, the transport time of coffee cherries coming from the coffee field to the washing station must be reduced from 12 hours down to two to four hours. This translates into a $0.15 or higher premium per pound of green coffee sold.   Newly designed high load-bearing bicycles can solve the transport problem if a program could make the bikes available to farmers for a reasonable price on credit and where quality premiums would cover the bike’s cost. Orders for the first 1000 coffeebikes are in the system and the first bikes should arrive in the beginning of 2007. In the meantime, Jay will work with SPREAD director Tim Schilling on how to implement the bike into areas that have the greatest amount of need, potential, and financial opportunity. Microfinancing of the bikes will be advised by SPREAD, and the group will also monitor critical feedback during the first season’s use. Jay, son of Ritchey Design and Project Rwanda founder Tom Ritchey, left for Rwanda November 8th with one of 2 prototype utility bicycle dubbed the “coffeebike” a high-tech portable welder, and the passion of a 24-year-old with a degree in Global Science and Sociology from Azusa Pacific College. Jay is a lifestyle cyclist and hands-on mechanic, and was searching for the opportunity to help people in the Third World. “After the trip to the Wooden Bike Classic in Rwanda this September, to which I brought my three children, I could have predicted that something like this might happen,” said Tom Ritchey. “Jay’s natural gifting in terms of bicycles and his desire to be a servant to the needy coincided with meeting the people of Rwanda.” Tom Ritchey sees his son's efforts, “as another opportunity for bicycles to bring hope to Rwandans, helping the people to improve their lives with technology that's workable. The coffeebike is a tool for hope in our world.” |
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