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Project Rwanda uses bikes to rebuild |
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Written by Nick Lees
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Monday, 07 January 2008 |
 Achille Karuletwa, left, director of Project Rwanda, with local cycling icon Alex Stieda
Photograph by : Brian Gavriloff, The Journal
EDMONTON - Specially designed bikes are replacing hand-carved wooden bikes in Rwanda's coffee fields and helping a nation recover from civil war and genocide that claimed nearly one million lives.
"A bike may seem an unusual tool to use in a country's economic development," said Achille Karuletwa.
"But it is the ideal transport tool to help rebuild the coffee business destroyed in the 1994 country-wide genocide."
Karuletwa was recently appointed director of Project Rwanda and next week opens the non-profit organization's office in Kigali.
The charity was founded by northern California's Tom Ritchey, co-creator of the mountain bike. Visiting Rwanda in 2005, he thought specially designed bikes could help coffee farmers.
Edmonton cyclist Alex Stieda, a friend of Ritchey's, discovered how effective his buddy's coffee bike could be when he took part in Project Rwanda's Wooden Bike Classic races in 2006.
The races, a fundraiser to raise awareness of the country, began in 2006 and attract participants from around the world.
"Coffee is Rwanda's most important cash crop," said Stieda. "Most coffee is moved from about 500,000, family-owned mountain farms to lowland washing stations by whatever means humanly possible.
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