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Bicycles Save the World

Bicycles Save the World is a project we carried out based on two pre-existing projects — namely our overseas house-building volunteer project in Cambodia which aimed to address the global housing issue, and Charinko Presentation (“charinko” means “bicycle” in Japanese), a bicycle charity event in which we cycled through Kumamoto, Fukuoka, and Oita to raise awareness of global poverty and express our gratitude for our own housing.

Preliminary survey

Before going to Cambodia to build houses, our members surveyed high school and university students to see what questions they had for the people of Cambodia, and find out what they expected us to do there. The aim of this was to bring them into closer proximity with social issues. As part of Charinko Presentation, our volunteers reported on their experiences overseas and gave presentations to raise awareness about poverty. We also wanted to boost people's interest in what we do by reporting on the results of our preliminary survey.

When we surveyed students at a high school in Fukuoka in July, they asked questions about the lifestyle, culture, and food of Cambodia, and also asked us to tell the people of Cambodia about Japanese culture.
Equipped with the feedback we solicited from these surveys, our members went to Cambodia in August to work as　house-building volunteers. In addition to building houses, we talked to locals and observed their lifestyles. We also　visited an elementary school, and as we played games with the students, we were able to get some answers to　the　questions we collected.