The Vitoria-Gasteiz cooperative, which carries out comprehensive transport services with cargo bicycles, has started to participate in the Vitoria-Gasteiz School initiative in the course of this year together with the Vitoria-Gasteiz City Council. The aim of the initiative is “to encourage children to feel safe on their bikes and to travel independently in the city”, says Paul Iano, a collaborator of LUZ and one of the founders of the Erama cooperative. Iana emphasizes that in addition to training, the aim of the cooperative is for the children to feel comfortable and have fun on the bike.

The members of the Cooperativa de Porta give bicycle lessons every week of the school year to children of different ages, from Monday to Thursday in the morning. They attend two schools in Vitoria-Gasteiz each week, where they teach between 40 and 60 children each week. Iana mentions that they want to set a certain age for teaching, and that although they do not teach in all schools in the city, they want to reach as many children as possible.

Eraman wants to promote the culture of the bicycle, beyond being a tool for sports or work. Iano, who was born in the United States, mentions that in his youth he was the only one in his school who used bicycles as a means of transport. In the U.S. city of Seattle, he was caught several times on a bicycle, the center of the city was an hour away from his home by bicycle. Iana points out that due to the existence of cycling infrastructure in Vitoria-Gasteiz, which is getting better and better, and the addition of space for pedestrians and bicycles, it has been interesting to train these children to travel comfortably.

In addition to teaching children to walk around the city safely, Eraman’s colleague, Peter Pla, emphasizes that it is an inclusive initiative in which children with physical disabilities also participate. “They also feel capable of using bicycles,” says Pla. Iana says that one of the children she has taught has a disability in her legs and she saw that she was always on a skateboard, but when she saw all her classmates on the bike, she mentions that she was also encouraged and that Iano went to teach for the next day, the child learned to ride the bike on his own. He said he was “impressed” and explained that in that case this child needed “a little motivation and inspiration” than learning to ride a bike.

Cooperative work, promoting local trade in a “sustainable and ethical way”

Iana points out that the Escuela de Vivir initiative is in line with Eraman’s values and that they have decided to participate in the initiative in a cooperative way, because in other places such initiatives are being taken by “private capitalist companies or the Police”. Iana explains why she chose to work in a cooperative way: “We like to live like this, and if I wanted to work in a company with normal, professional and hierarchical rules, I would go for something else. But in the end, we want to work in a collaborative company.” In a “sustainable and ethical way” and with the support of local commerce, Eraman seeks to professionalize the distribution, while the cooperative distributes products from other points of sale, the press –among them, the weekly of LUZ– or packages.