EBBB SOCIAL ENTERPRISE BUILDING BIKES IN TIANYAR
As Mount Agung volcano continued to rumble regularly spew further ash and dust eruptions, our East Bali BambooBambooBike (EBBB) team continued building bike frames at EWABI workshop in the knowledge that that EWABI would permanently close its business in mid-January 2018, forcing our bamboo bike team to cease activities again.
In readiness for this, EBPP Chairman and Team Leader, Komang Kurniawan decided that activities must continue and made plans with Deni Nugraha and our East Bali staff to build a semi-permanent bamboo workshop on half a hectare of land behind his Tianyar house. Work started on 2nd January and the structure was completed sufficiently by 16th January for our complete bamboo bike team to relocate and set everything up.
Komang then prepared simple plans to build a complete camp with 3 large school rooms, dormitories for 100 EBPP students, accommodation for our bamboo team and much more. The full camp was ready for use on 16th February, coinciding with the Government Volcanology Department reducing the Mount Agung volcano hazard zone from 6km (which included our Daya Bamboo workshop) to 4km radius from the crater. However, due to the continued risk of an imminent eruption, the bamboo bike team will work in Tianyar until there are no further threats of Mount Agung erupting, which could be days or even months from now.
Since January, our Denpasar Admin team has focussed on preparing brochures, promotional materials, banners, a dedicated website (www.eastbalibamboobikes.com launched in mid-February) and social media pages for Facebook and Instagram to promote our bamboo bikesand raise funds for our Social Enterprise. For physical exposure and promotion of our bikes, we’ve identified 3 events we will attend in the next 3 months, starting with the Canggu Community School GIN Bali Passion Fair on 4th March, where we’ll display both our male/female Mountain Bikes (MTB) and City Bikes as well as our newly created accessories of bamboo mudguards and water bottle holders.
The first and most exciting Expo we’ve booked is INABIKE: The 8th Indonesia International Bike, Parts & Accessories Exhibition 2018 from 22 – 24 March at the Jakarta International Expo, Kemayoran, Jakarta, where 35,000 trade visitors are expected in the 3 days. We’ll take one MTB and one City Bike and hope to generate great interest and take orders, sign up trade buyers, sell accessories during the Expo and hope to sell our 2 bikes!
Second is the International Veteran Cycle Association (IVCA) held 12-16 April in Bali and they are already giving us publicity and have invited us to the launch dinner on 12thApril where I will give a presentation about EBPP’s work with the communities and the story behind the East Bali Bamboo Bikes Social Enterprise.
We are committed to building our bikes to the highest standards with locally sourced bamboo and local artisans. We hope, through the generosity of GlobalGiving donors, that East Bali Bamboo Bikes social enterprise will rapidly become well known, generating new orders which will enable recruitment and training of more local youth and see sustainable social and economic development for the communities of Desa Ban.
