Bikes for Barbados helping social development

Pinelands Creative Workshop is continuing to use its Bicycle Project to bridge the socio-economic divide in various communities in Barbados. 

How are they doing this?

The organization which has been in operation for the past 44 years sells its bicycles and bicycle parts from its headquarters in Rock Close, Wildey, St Michael and then the proceeds are used for many of its programmes. 

Financial Executive Officer at Pinelands Creative Workshop, Shelly Durant-Forde explained that the bicycles are donated to the organization via their partnership with Bikes For The World.

“We actually started selling bicycles in 1994 and initially we started with an organization called Pedals For Progress after that Bikes For The World was another organization that branched off of Pedals For Progress and we had a better relationship with them as they were producing better quality bicycles, so we decided to continue our relationship with them. Bikes For The World donates bicycles to organizations [like Pinelands Creative Workshop] across the world, we bring in two shipment of bicycles every year and this aids us with our sustainable development and promoting affordable transportation in different countries,” she said. 

Durant-Forde added that unlike other countries across the world where they need the bicycles for their transportation, at Pinelands Creative Workshop they use the bicycles to channel the funds they receive from the bicycle sales into the many free educational and developmental projects that the registered charity has. 

“Our initiative is Bikes For Barbados; we sell the bicycles at our office, and we have bicycles for everyone and there are affordable. Our bicycles start from $75 BDS for the ones for the young children and they go up to $600 BDS. Remember when you spend and you purchase these bicycles you are assisting with the social development, as the money raised goes to help our many programmes such as the 11+ after school programme, early childhood education, CSEC after school programme, our entrepreneurship programme [Creating Innovative Thinkers In Business], our cultural development programmes for these young persons in our community and the surrounding communities. So, think about the fact that when you buy the bicycle your money is being spent to ensure that the children of Barbados have varied free educational and developmental opportunities,” she said. 

She further explained that the organization which would be celebrating its 45th year of existence in February 2023 has utilized the funds from their Bikes For Barbados project to aid not only persons in the Pine area but persons from other surrounding areas over the years.

“I started with Pinelands Creative Workshop from the tender age of eleven-years-old and for me as an individual [the organization] has done a lot for my own personal development and because of that I want persons in Barbados to be afforded the same opportunities that I was able to have. Our people in our community need these programmes. We had a housing programme where persons in the community were able to have some affordable housing, we sent some of our members and our children to school by paying their school fees, purchasing uniforms and preparing lunches for them and we were also able to do employment programmes at our resource centre where we were able to prepare some of the persons in our community for the world of work. A few months ago, we would have launched our Personal and Economic Empowerment of Women initiative in conjunction with the Caribbean Policy Development Centre (CPDC) which was a very successful programme. We continue to work hard in our community, and we use our cultural forms to teach about our Afro-Caribbean heritage as well as find creative initiatives to keep our young people away from deviant behaviours,” she said. 

Persons who are desirous of purchasing a bicycle from Pinelands Creative Workshop can contact 430-0551. (Write Right PR Services)