Donations of old bicycles in Tipperary help African children to make journey to school

Above: Pictured at Tipperary County Council’s recycling centre in Cashel, as bikes were being prepared for shipment to Shelton Abbey for repairs and then onwards to schoolchildren in Gambia, were Clonmel Rotary Club members Billy Doyle, Joe O’Sullivan and Michael O’Malley, with recycling centre staff Andrew Carroll; manager Pat Walsh, Aidan Ryan and Noel Griffin

Unused bicycles donated by the people of Tipperary continue to be used by African children to get to school.

Already this year, 180 unused but roadworthy bikes have been shipped to Shelton Abbey prison, where they are repaired by inmates, and then transported to Gambia to enable local children have easier access to school.

Behind the project is Clonmel Rotary Club, which has been running the School Bikes for Africa programme for nine years.

The first consignment of 90 bikes this year was delivered to Shelton Abbey in June, with a second consignment of 90 in November. The bikes were collected and stored at Tipperary County Council’s recycling centre in Cashel before transportation, and Clonmel Rotary Club is extremely grateful to the council, to centre manager Pat Walsh and all his team for their support.

A spokesperson for Tipperary County Council paid tribute to the club for its endeavour and added that the council is delighted that its recycling amenity in Cashel is now a vital cog in the project’s operation as a collection centre for the bikes.

The scheme has proven to be one of the club’s most successful projects over the past eight years, with the bikes being a huge boon to Gambian schoolchildren who otherwise would have had difficulty travelling long distances to school.

Clonmel Rotary Club has been involved in this venture for the past nine years under the able stewardship of Rotarian Joe O’ Sullivan.

Initially this resulted in old bikes being collected in the Tipperary area and stored in a shed in the old Ronan Tannery premises off the Coleville Road. Normally this collection took place in May of each year and approximately 100 bikes were collected each year and then conveyed to Loughan House prison in Cavan, where the inmates repaired them. Sponsorship covered the cost of transportation from Clonmel to Cavan.

The repaired bikes were then shipped to schools in Gambia, where they were used by students to cycle long distances from their homes to school and this resulted in a big increase in the learning capabilities of the students in Gambia.

The project has now gone nationwide, with many other counties involved, with Rotary Ireland the lead organiser. Also involved are local authorities, the Department of the Environment, the Prison Service and the Irish Defence Forces, as well as the local Rotary Clubs in each county.

In Tipperary, Clonmel Rotary Club, ably led by President Paul Davey and members Billy Doyle, Joe O’Sullivan and Michael O’Malley, is the main link between Rotary Ireland and Tipperary County Council in launching the bikes project this year.

Club president Paul Davey has thanked the public for its ongoing support for the project and has urged people to continue to donate their unused bikes into the future. The bikes may no longer be of much use here but are a vital resource to children in the Gambia, who may have no access to school without them.