Rickshaw Project

Rickshaw for the poor..

Earning a living is very difficult for the poor. They are not educated so they cannot get a decent job and rely on others.

Some are lucky enough to travel to the cities and can manage to hire a rickshaw cycle to earn a living but even then after paying the rent it does not leave them with enough to run a family.

They will work all day just to make about taka 200 which is just £2 but some of it goes to the rental of the rickshaw.

To understand how much a poor person can earn pulling a rickshaw, here is a passage from an article on "Poor man's life in Bangladesh" taken from Jordon news.net - dated 14th My 2007.

"Mohammed Babul Sikdar aged 25 is a young rickshaw puller who came to the city of Bangladesh from Mymensing district, to earn some money. He says "I came here about seven-eight years ago to earn my bread. On average, I earn taka 300 in a day. Out of this I give take 100 as rent to rickshaw owner ever day so I hardly save anything". He has a small family with just his wife and finds it difficult to live on taka 300 so what chance does poor families with children have in succeeding."

The cost of a new rickshaw is between taka 10,000 to 14,000 - beyond the reach of the millions who sweat for hours every day pulling the heavy load. For some of us, we earn 300 pounds weekly or even more so just 100 pounds is not much for us if it was bringing in income. For the more, they never can save taka 10,000 to buy a rickshaw.

Also remember that a rickshaw puller not working in the city earns much less than that, even half as much as the ones in the city. They are worse off as they cannot afford to rent a rickshaw to earn some money. Sometimes even the income from two men is not enough. It's just about enough for daily needs.

What we plan to do...

This Rickshaw project is aimed for the extreme poor and needy who have no means on income. We plan to buy rickshaws for poor families so that they do not have to pay rent from they earnings. Also we plan to help towards the licensing cost of the rickshaw. We feel that renting it out to them will not get them out of poverty but will just put stress o the family.

The rickshaw can help in many ways;

- have regular income without the burden of the rent

- help transport family around without the cost of fares

- villagers have to travel a long way to do shopping or bring water, the rickshaw will make that easier

-very low maintenance, ideal for the poor

This is a great place to start to make the extreme poor become self-sufficient. Donate £150 for a rickshaw.

This is to allow them to cope with the daily needs. Our help, your help will go a long way to seeing the end to poverty. 

PLEASE DONATE generously.