A not-for-profit organization, Giving Hands Foundation, has distributed bicycles to female students in the Tolon district.

Giving Hands Foundation empowers rural populations, with a focus on women and girls, to shorten the distance between them and opportunities to access basic necessities, including education, clean water, healthcare, and markets for subsistence agricultural produce.

The NGO is committed to poverty reduction and having a positive impact on communities across Ghana and the rest of Africa. Bicycle poverty reduction is based on the concept that access to bicycles and the transportation infrastructure to support them can dramatically reduce poverty.

This initiative is their maiden pilot project in Ghana.

Speaking to the Communications Director for Giving Hands Foundation reiterated the focus on the plight of rural women and girls in accessing basic necessities that we in the urban setting tend to take for
granted.

Mr. Bernard Sokpe said this during the maiden bicycle distribution to female students in the Gbulahagu D/A JHS in the Tolon Kunbungu district of the Northern Region.

Some girls walk up to 5 kilometers every morning to fetch water for their household before walking another 8 kilometers to school and back, making up a daily commute of 8 kilometers every day.

This sometimes leads to poor school performance and eventually leads to them dropping out of school.

The headmaster of the school, Mr. Mohammed Ibrahim, welcomed the project and thanked the Giving Hands management for their show of concern and kindness towards these girls.

A week after the girls had received the bikes, the headmaster called to inform the NGO of an increase in attendance of the girls and a further call to help other students within the same district and its environs facing the same plight.

One of the girls explained said "I’m so happy and much appreciative of the bicycles they have sent to us. We promise to put it to good use."

Throughout our 5-year research studies and data analysis, we found that providing low-cost mobility would go a long way in helping them traverse these punishing distances and keeping them in school.
80% of our distributed bicycles go to women and girls.

Daily Graphic asked how such a project is funded, Mr. Sokpe stated support from TransSahara Industries, a local mobility company that assembles bicycles who generously provided the initial bicycles that were donated to these girls in the Northern region.