David Schweidenback - Ecuador

Interview with David Schweidenback, Founder of Pedals for Progress.


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When he was serving in the Peace Corps, David Schweidenback lived in a tiny settlement with a hunter-gatherer tribe known as the Shwar while he worked as a land surveyor, surveying tribal lands for the region's indigenous people. This was critical because they had no title to their ancestral lands and risked losing them. He would fly to tiny villages throughout the region, some of which had airstrips, to map the land. The plane would leave him for a month or two at a time while he surveyed what the local people considered to be their land --anything within one day's walk of their house.

That was when he discovered that they all walked everywhere, and that if they had humanity's greatest invention – the wheel, they could improve their quality of life. This is why he started Pedals for Progress, a New Jersey-based non-profit organization. By distributing bicycles in rural areas of the developing world, he reports that he can increase the income by 14% and create an important new force in the local economy.

In this interview, David Schweidenback tells us that when he started P4P he was looking to collect a dozen bicycles. He received 140. His euphoria soon disappeared when he realized that the cost of preparing and shipping bicycles far exceeded his capability - he had planned on paying for shipping the bikes himself.

Pedals for Progress collects bicycles from individuals, donation centers and other sources in the US – mostly in New Jersey where David Schweidenback lives – and ships them overseas. He tells us that there is very high demand for bicycles, but no supply. So he sells the bikes, although at a vastly reduced price. Pedals for Progress gets about $10 per bike from their sale, and it asks the bike donors for an additional $10. This pays for about 75% of the organization's costs and enables people in the village to pay for them at about 10% of their real value.

The sales money is recycled back into the organization where it is used for loans to small bike repair shops in the villages.  These businesses are sustainable because they provide services for the bikes that they sell.

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