- It's World Bicycle Relief Week here on GCN,
helping to change lives through the power
of bicycles.
In the second of our series, we follow Chris,
a farmer, as he goes about his daily routine
now with the help of a Buffalo Bike.
(Zambians singing)
- Today, we are in Zambia on a farm,
Christopher's farm to be exact.
He is in the background somewhere milking cows,
which he's been doing for an hour already.
It's 5:30 a.m. and I think he's going to
give me a go as well.
So, let's go on in.
(rooster crows)
(milking)
Christopher, thank you for having us at your farm.
- No, it's no problem.
- We're going to follow you for some of this morning.
So first, is that you're going to let me
have a go at milking, briefly.
What's the plan after that?
Are we going to load the bike up with the milk
and take it to the distribution centre?
- Yes, yes, that's the plan.
That we now start milking, and we load the bike
with the milk on the bikes, and then we deliver.
- Okay, I think we're going to see if I'm
strong enough to load the milk into the bike, as well.
It sounds like it's going to be very heavy.
- No, no, no, not very heavy.
I mean you look strong enough. (laughs)
- Not for you, yeah. (laughs)
Let's go and have a go.
- (speaks in foreign language) with milking.
- (laughs) He's laughing.
Like, yeah right.
- Uh-oh (laughing)
- It's nervous.
- Yeah it's nervous.
- Not as nervous as I am, but he's still nervous.
She, she.
- Okay, good to go.
(speaks in foreign language)
- Okay.
- Right.
- Okay.
So, from the top?
- Yeah.
Going down.
(milking)
- All right, we're off.
- Yeah.
- Oooh, spray.
What am I doing?
- Yeah, this is going to be a long one.
- (laughs) All right.
Come on, I've got to least ...
Oh .
Nope.
It's not happening out of any other one.
- Oh, yeah?
Okay, I think that's good for-
- Yeah, I think that's enough.
We'd better let your man get on with it.
(loud milk squirting)
(laughing)
Right I think all nine cows how now been milked.
A small part by me.
So we're ready to now put the very heavy urn
on to the back of the bike.
- Okay, you ready?
- I think he's gonna trust me to do it.
- Alone?
- Well, we'll see.
How heavy is it?
- It is quite heavy.
- There we go.
- You gonna need some help?
- I'm trying not to drop it.
- Okay, let me help.
- Got it?
Yeah, then we're going to ride to the collection point.
Chris is going to ride this bike, obviously.
His potentially 40 litres of milk could
fall all over the place if I'm on the bike.
- I think this should be good enough.
- Yeah, look's solid.
Right, let's go.
(uplifting music)
Before the Buffalo Bike, this 4 kilometre journey
would be done twice daily on foot.
So two people, one on either side of the urn.
Once in the morning, and again in the afternoon.
Or sometimes there'd be three people around two urns
when productivity is particularly high.
For other farmers, that journey can be
four times the distance.
It'd be quite a trick even without the milk.
And you can imagine what it's like to walk
with that extra 40 kilogrammes.
The bike has cut the journey time
by well over 50%.
And that makes a huge difference in time and energy,
but also ensures that the milk stays fresh.
(mosquitoes buzzing)
Oh, we've arrived.
We'll park the bikes up.
I'm gonna help Chris stabilise his bike.
(man speaks foreign language)
(laughing)
His friends are laughing at him.
At the collection point, we have to wait our turn
to get the milk tested.
If it's all good, it's then poured into a large container,
at which point Chris is paid for the amount
that he's brought in.
This is the first of two trips done each and every day.
So I think Chris and I are just about ready
to ride back.
We'll just let you know there are over 100 small farms
here in the small province of Palabana.
Over here you can see that there are
lots of Buffalo Bikes being used.
But here's somebody doubling up on the back here.
Couple of containers.
That must have been very heavy there on the way in.
But this is the difference these Buffalo Bikes have made
to the local community.
Because they're all riding in instead of walking.
(Zambians singing)
We're going to leave, briefly, our journey with Chris,
because I wanted to tell you about this very cool
charity and community.
This is called Chikumbuso, and it's been around
since 2005.
It was set up to help people in need.
So anyone from young vulnerable people through to
orphans, through to widows, and grandmothers as well.
And for the more senior people that arrive here,
they are taught how to crochet and how to sew,
and how to make some extremely cool products
out of recycled materials.
I, for example, have literally just purchased myself
possibly the coolest laptop case you will ever find.
For the younger ones, they have set up an in-house school,
which caters and educates children
right the way through from kindergarten to grade seven.
However, what they were finding was, that when they
left here and they went into the senior schools,
they were much further afield and sometimes
they weren't able to get there on foot.
And that is why 10 years ago they started
working with World Bicycle Relief,
in order to provide those students with the Buffalo Bikes
so they could finish what they'd started.
Right, we're back.
So I think Chris,
- Yeah?
- Time to wash the milk can.
- Definitely.
- One of your workers is going to do that.
We do that over here.
- We'll do it just here.
- And then Chris has got lots of work to do today with
his poultry section of the farm.
- Yeah.
- And also, what is the other thing you have to do today?
- The pigeonry we have to run see.
- Pigeonry as well?
- Yeah.
- He wants to go pigeons as you can see.
And then we'll be back to milking later on, or they will be.
Then back down to the ...
- To taking, delivering milk.
- Yeah?
- Yeah.
- Yeah, long day.
- Right, let's get this off.
Now if you're wondering why Chris' bike is
bright green or bright yellow, it is because
this is part of a special project called
the Conservation Agriculture Scaling Up Project.
Which was done in conjunction with the European Union,
Zambian government, and the Food Agricultural Organisation.
They have provided farms across Zambia with a total of
four and half thousand of these
special coloured Buffalo Bikes.
Chris, I know, is very grateful to have this
because he has used different bikes in previous years.
But the problem was that with those huge loads of milk
on the back, they broke pretty quickly.
Whereas this Buffalo Bike, which is of course
built to withstand loads of up to 100 kilogrammes
plus the rider himself, this is more than capable
of doing multiple years of journeys to and fro
with those loads of milk on the back.
We only followed Chris for the first half of his day.
It certainly wasn't easy just doing that.
And of course, farming is a seven day a week job,
arduous in these conditions then, to say the very least.
Even with the bike.
Now although Chris was fortunate enough to be
donated his bike, and all students receive theirs
free of charge,
most farmers will in fact pay for them over time
with a local employee purchase programme.
And that is a really important point, the
sustainability of World Bicycle Relief as a charity.
And the farmers are also finding that their
Buffalo Bikes are incredibly useful for another purpose.
And that is to bring their produce down to local markets
like this one is Palabana.
The donations that you have already made for the bikes
that have been given to people here in Zambia
have already made a huge difference,
but we can do so much more for them.
We would love to raise even more money than we did
back in 2016 this time around.
There is the incentive that Matt and Cy are going to
ride across London on a 5 kilometre stretch
wearing nothing but swimming costume.
But apart from that, the incentive is right here
behind me and with Christopher, who we've been
following today.
So a very big thank you to him,
and to all of you who've already made donations.
If you'd like to do so right now you can just
go into the description below,
follow link, and all of the details
will be right there in front of you.
If you would like to see Lizzie, meanwhile,
who we follow as a student on her daily routine,
you can find that video just down there.