On Sunday, June 15th Bikes Not Bombs volunteers loaded a 40' shipping container with 464 donated and many buckets and bundles of spare parts, now on its way to the Diepsloot, South Africa "Youth Cycles Project." The Diepsloot project was started in May of 2006 through a collaboration between Bikes Not Bombs and the Global Community Initiatives along with organized youth of Diepsloot. The project has two programmatic elements:
1) a small scale bicycle shop business and 2) an Earn-A-Bike youth program. Both of these programs are housed in Diepsloot, and run chiefly by youth who live in the South African settlement, a 200,000 person township that is considered to be a part of Johannesburg.

The Bike Shop and the Earn-A-Bike program, based on the Bikes Not Bombs model, are currently supporting the wages of 5 individuals by selling used and new bicycles, providing parts and repair services to the local community and running the not-for-profit Earn-A-Bike program for youth through foundation grants. More than 300 bicycles have been distributed via the Earn-A-Bike program in Diepsloot and 40 more individuals will be graduating in August of this year.

A big thanks to the volunteer International Committee at BNB, more volunteers who helped load the shipment, the Wednesday Volunteer Night crew who prepared the bikes, Steve Bosco and bike drive organizers for collecting bikes, you who donated the bikes, and all who have donated money to BNB to help make this work possible!