Bicycle workshop for migrants, an alternative for dignified living
- Migrants who have arrived in Arrigorriaga have just launched a project to repair bicycles, rent bicycles and teach cycling. Condemned to be illegal citizens without papers for at least three years, they aim to regularize the administrative situation through self-employment and create a cooperative for migrants.
A two-storey venue has been opened: a low-public welcome space, a mechanic workshop to arrange bicycles upstairs. We found Ousmane, Mussa and Charles there. The three are from Côte d'Ivoire, have met in Arrigorriaga and are immersed in the Bizi Eskola initiative along with two other young people from Africa. Charles, 31, Mussa and Ousman, is 20, and about a year and a half ago they managed to make the leap from Africa to Europe, after waiting for the kick in the Moroccan camps. You don't really want to talk about the journey, the experience was hard, why tell more? They started thinking that they could make money in Europe, in search of a better life, but they soon clashed with reality.
They came to work, but immediately they saw that they were denied the possibility of working: without papers, they won't use you, and without jobs, it's hard to get papers. The vicious circle of always, a stratagem of the administration that becomes an invincible wall. Ousmane, Mussa and Charles took refuge in Bilbao, and volunteers moved them to Arrigorriaga. The young people of Arrigorriaga made their place in the gaztetxe, and at the moment there are about ten people living there, from Cameroon, Senegal, Guinea Conakry and Côte d'Ivoire.
Later on, the idea is that it works by partner: in exchange for payment of the fee, the partners will have the opportunity to fix the bike using the tools of the workshop, helping each other.
Since then, the Bizi Eskola project has been made possible by the solidarity network created in the village. “We are very well in Arrigorriaga, here we have found a family, a family that wants to help us, and that’s the most important thing,” says Ousman. The youth assembly, the reception network, the support of Ongi Etorri Errefuxiatuak and Biziz Bizi have been key to advancing the project that migrant people have managed.
The African dynamizers of the School
of Life have in mind a wide range of possibilities. On the one hand, classes will be taught to learn how to ride a bicycle. In addition, women over the age of 50 are already interested. In addition to Arrigorriaga, training courses in Basque and Spanish will also be held in Basauri. They also have old bicycles ready for conditioning, repairing and putting them for sale and for rent. Children's bicycles, for example, that only serve the child for a while, will be available at a symbolic price. They also have a workshop, which are the kinds of mechanics, and it's not so much about fixing the bicycle to people, it's about teaching whoever comes to fix it. The aim is personal learning, so there will also be bicycle repair workshops on the premises they have in Plaza Juan XXIII.
Looking to the future, the goal is for it to work through a partner: in exchange for payment of a fee, the partners will have the opportunity to bring and repair the bike there, using the tools at the place to their liking, helping each other. It is also planned to organise mountain bike routes and create a school for the youngest.
They say that neighbors have been interested in the issue. There is a great fondness for cycling in the region, but there are no shops or workshops related to the bicycle, there are no similar services. “We’re going slowly, we’ve done nothing but start, but we’re very excited, we’re hopeful that this will open the doors to us in the future and now our goal is to get everything right,” they explain. The project will serve to demonstrate that they are rooted and working to get the papers, and if the project has a fruitful trajectory, they dream of a cooperative for migrants, which is neither paper nor opportunity for other newly arrived migrants.
“It will help people to know us” Also to
strengthen relations with the people’s neighbors and neighbors, Ousman has stressed that this project is an opportunity to get to know the people and know them better. In addition, the initiative is supported by values such as recycling or sustainable mobility, which makes them proud of it.
Pedro Vallejo, a member of the host network and of Biziz Bizi, has been critical: “The system is not enough to put young people into precarious employment, close borders and dehumanize those who come from abroad, condemning them to occupy the worst paid jobs. The Administration obstructs migrants in order to be able to work with dignity and have to seek alternatives.” That the alternative being built in Arrigorriaga is the key to a dignified future.
LIFE SCHOOL
At home, the bicycle you have in the garage, the one you don't use, give Bizi Eskola and they will arrange it to give it to anyone who needs it or rent it or sell it to anyone who wants it:
602 170 024
632 944 087
One of the major projects developed by Olatukoop with other actors is KoopFabrika, a programme created in 2017 with the aim of boosting social entrepreneurship and which is currently underway.
Initially, the first idea was that the cooperatives and agents that gathered around... [+]
