Bicycle transport in Zambia
Practical Action
Also an indirect benefit is the women, working together, share information such as on AIDS, child
health and nutrition. Their success, such as in the peanut butter business has created a culture
receptive to new ideas and of willingness to learn. They have a literacy Group, pre-school group and
so on.
Just before leaving Lundazi, I was given another donation from UK of about $600. I
Figure The Mthuzi Womens Group with their trailer. (Photo: Alison Noble)
approached one of the rural Health Centres located 45km from the town and asked what they
would like to purchase with the funds. After consultation with the community, it was agreed
that they would like 6 bicycle ambulances which were constructed using the ITDG basic
design. The idea is that the ambulances will be given to 6 villages in the catchment of the
Health Centre – up to 3 hours walk from the Centre itself. At present people who are sick can
reach the Centre in one of four ways: walk, on bicycle, in an ox cart or carried on an
improvised stretcher such as a door. As you can imagine none of these are comfortable for a
patient and often mean that patients are only taken to the Centre as a last resort.
Unfortunately stories of patients dying along the way are not uncommon.
The bicycle ambulances will be kept in the villages and will enable patients to travel to the
Health Centre faster, in more comfort and, hopefully, before their condition is too serious.
The catchment for each of the ambulances is about 2,000 people. Zambia national statistics
show that, in any three-week period, one third of all Zambians are sick so it is likely that the
ambulances will be well used! However, they were only placed into the community in
November and no monitoring of use has yet been obtained. The Health Centre estimated that
each ambulance would be used to bring one person to the Centre each week – 300 people per
year.
When the ambulances were delivered a large crowd soon assembled and many questions were
asked. Of course, as with any new item, there were many doubtful comments made. We
made up one of the ambulances and a bicycle was found. The trailer was fixed to the bicycle
and a ‘willing’ patient placed on the ambulance to see how it worked. The bicycle rider
pronounced the ambulance easy to pull and very manoeuvrable, the patient declared a
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