CHARITY organisation Bicycles for Humanity (B4H) WA celebrated 15 years of service at the end of May, reflecting on their time providing accessible transportation for communities in need.

The celebration was held at the B4H WA bike shed in Midvale on May 24 attended by 70 volunteers, sponsors, supporters and friends of the organisation.

Guests were treated to live presentations and video messages from recipient communities.

B4H director David Tucker provided feedback from eight communities he had visited in Namibia last year and said the resounding question was, “When can you send us more bikes?”

Orion Minerals sustainability and business support executive Marcus Birch highlighted by video the provision of bikes to numerous school children of all ages in Prieska, South Africa.

The bikes allowed the children to ride kilometres to school in a quarter of the time they used to walk.

Mission in Health Care and Development founder Luc Mulimballimba’s video which celebrated the benefits of bikes to women’s health in the Democratic Republic of Congo by easing the burden of carrying heavy loads like water to home, or fruit and vegetables to market was also shown.

Rotary WA district governor Veronica Lawrance praised the collaboration between Rotary and B4H WA in delivering more than 1000 bikes to school children and small businesspeople in rural South Africa.

Bike Creative Foundation founder Chris Sellings said the positive changes to whole communities in the Kimberley was a result of his project to distribute bikes to numerous schools.

The formalities were capped off by a very warm and heart-felt vote of thanks to all B4H WA volunteers by MLC Ayor Makur Chuot.

Ms Chuot was the first member of the South Sudanese community elected to WA Parliament.

She spoke from her lived experience, growing up in a refugee camp in Kenya, after evacuation from South Sudan.

The event was supported by Volunteering WA and Lotterywest.

B4H WA’s mission remains to address poverty by the donation of refurbished, pre-owned bicycles to communities in rural Africa and remote indigenous communities in WA and NT.

In these communities a bicycle provides affordable transport to access food and water, health care and travel to work and school.

In 15 years, thousands of people’s lives have been changed in seven countries across Africa by the delivery of 11,000 bikes, along with spares and tools.

Another 2000 bikes have been sent to numerous schools in remote indigenous communities from Esperance to Kununurra and across the border into NT.