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Y Goldfields receives 420 bikes for youth outreach program

Headshot of Elena Morabito
Elena MorabitoKalgoorlie Miner
The Y Goldfields manager Lisa Cooper with a container-load of bicycles sent from Perth.
Camera IconThe Y Goldfields manager Lisa Cooper with a container-load of bicycles sent from Perth. Credit: KalgoorlieMiner/Elena Morabito

The Y Goldfields received 420 bicycles on Tuesday as part of an outreach program for young people, who will learn how to repair bikes on a weekly basis and donate them to a charity of their choice.

The project was first suggested by Bicycles for Humanity WA, which is part of a global volunteer-run, not-for-profit organisation that uses donated bikes to provide sustainable transport to people living in poverty.

The organisation partnered with Toll, which covered the transportation of the bicycles, and a $10,000 donation by Northern Star to kickstart the project.

The Y Kalgoorlie manager Lisa Cooper said the centre had noticed the need to run programs to teach new skills to local youth which enabled them to achieve a rewarding outcome while helping the community.

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Ms Cooper told the Kalgoorlie Miner the bicycle supply would hopefully last a couple of terms, with the PCYC and the City of Kalgoorlie-Boulder also offering 20 bikes each to continue the program.

She said once the supply ran out, organisers would appeal to the community to donate bikes.

The youth will have the opportunity to repair two bicycles during the school term, and Ms Cooper said they could take one home at the end of the program, giving the second one away.

“They get to then go and present it to those people, which is pretty cool,” Ms Cooper said.

She said the Training Alliance Group had reached out for disengaged youth to participate in the workshops, and the Goldfields Women’s Refuge had already shown interest in obtaining some of the donated bicycles to give to clients.

Ms Cooper thanked Northern Star and Toll for their support, and thanked the Rotary Club of Kalgoorlie for connecting the Y Goldfields with Bicycles for Humanity, with workshops set to begin at the start of October.

Bicycles for Humanity WA director David Tucker said he was “delighted” the organisation could send the bicycles to the Y Goldfields. He said there would be enough bikes to supply the youth engagement program as well as to distribute some to Aboriginal community groups in the region.

He said he hoped for an “ongoing relationship” with the youth organisation, and was there to support it.

Mr Tucker said there was also talk of establishing a collection point for donated bikes, saying of the 1.5 million bikes sold across Australia every year, nearly half ended up unused or abandoned.

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