Beginning as a small recycling social enterprise, Recyke-a-bike quickly grew into a job club using the bike recycling as work experience. Since then they have grown to include cycling outreach work and training services.
They help people, the local community and environment by getting more people to choose cycling for low carbon transport, better health and wellbeing, and of course for fun. Of course they also stop bikes ending up in landfill_!
Another area they have started doing a lot of work around is in supporting people into employment, education, training and volunteering
“We work with groups of people from diverse backgrounds with various barriers to employment. As part of this we have discovered that a lot of these people really benefit from spending time outdoors. As part of our project we have introduced the John Muir award, with the first few courses a real success.”
So to make things even better they were looking to build a pool of camping equipment so that they could deliver employability training programmes across the Forth Valley, part of which was delivering four challenges of the John Muir Award.
Discover a wild place. Explore and increase awareness, Conserve it, looking at practical action and responsibility and to share experiences.
Through 2019 it was great to hear back that with some help from the Alpkit Foundation they were able to improve the support Recyke-a-bike could offer to groups attending the various outdoor activities. On delivering the John Muir award they were then able to share experiences of building a fire, surviving in a tent and cooking when camping.
"These programmes allow the participants to share experiences or explore new experiences with their colleagues. The individuals benefited hugely by improving their own challenges, meeting new people, building confidence and enjoying exploring new places, that some had never had an opportunity to go to."
It was great to hear that they all achieved the John Muir Award and received a certificate. Everyone’s objectives were met, improving confidence social skills, learning new skills within a nature environment. Sounds pretty good to us!