Bikes Not Bombs is a Boston, Massachusetts based bicycle project which recycles donated bicycles, trains young people to fix their own bikes and become employable mechanics[1] and sends thousands of refurbished bikes to communities in countries such as South Africa, Ghana, and Guatemala. The organization was founded in 1984 by Carl Kurz, an anti-nuclear activist and Mira Brown, co-founder of Food Not Bombs, who sent bicycles and bicycle parts to Nicaragua to support the revolutionary Sandinista regime and resist the U.S. trade embargo against Nicaragua in effect at the time.[2]
Since that time, Bikes Not Bombs has sent bicycles and parts to Central America, Africa, the Caribbean, and to cities in the United States to set up bicycle workshops and public bicycle share programs. Both bicycles and bicycle parts are also sent abroad to support organizations that build pedal-powered machinery (bicitecnologia) for indigenous peoples, including grain mills, concrete vibrators, and machines for pumping water and depulping coffee that use no electricity.[3][4] The organization remains devoted to political activism in support of its goals:
MISSION STATEMENT Lasting peace and social justice require equitable and sustainable use of resources. BNB provides community-based education and assists development projects with recycled bicycles, related technologies and technical assistance, as concrete alternatives to the militarism, over-consumption & inequality that breed war and environmental destruction. Our organization is part of a worldwide movement for peace and responsible stewardship of the earth.