for bicycles
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for bicycles |
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Bicycle
Sponsorship Project & Workshop is introducing a credit scheme
for bicycles in Uganda. Due
to support of the German Ministry of Economic Cooperation and
Development a first step towards a feasible credit scheme for
the important means of transport, the bicycle, can be made. With
November 2000 BSPW can give out bikes to chosen recipients, who
have to repay the bicycle within one year and a maximum number
of twelve rates. The
interest rate on this credit-scheme is kept as low as possible
to avoid hardships for the recipients of the bikes. The
target-groups for the bikes are mainly people who live in rural
areas and who can expect a real improvement of their standard
of living with using the bikes. The
recipients of the bikes are often having a kind of a small business,
either using the bike as a taxi or a transporter for goods (the
so called boda-boda) or the recipients are using the bikes for
transporting their own harvest to or >from market-places or
their fields. The latter are mainly peasants who can improve
on marketing their harvest, if they have access to bikes. All
participants in the credit-scheme have to accept the same conditions
of repayment within one year and if they can´t BSPW has
to demand back the bike. There
is a high number of interested people who want to participate
in the credit scheme as many of the professional bicycle-taxi
riders, the boda-boda are facing hard conditions in their business:
Most of them don´t own their bike, but have to pay a high
daily rent to business-men who provide the bikes. Additional
to this, the boda-boda have to pay any repairs on the bikes themselves
and they have to pay registration-fees to town councils where
they operate. With
the credit-scheme, BSPW hopes to improve on the working-conditions
of the boda-boda, mainly young boys, who might be able to save
some more money with their business as the conditions of the
credit-scheme are acceptable for them. Thus
BSPW is trying to contribute to the improvement of living conditions
of youngsters, who have often left school as they are responsible
of the income of the family. BSPW hopes to enable the return
to school for one or the other. |
