Latest News
Second Job Training Project in the Works
January 19, 2009
In the summer of 2008, Rhion Magee, Project OKURASE's partner in Los Angeles, was on a family bicycling vacation. Little did she realize her vacation would result in job training in Okurase. While biking, Rhion discovered that one of the people on the trip was riding a Calfee Bike - a bamboo bicycle. When she returned home she googled Calfee Bikes and learned that the inventor of the bicycle, Craig Calfee, was starting training on the bike making in none other than GHANA. Anissa Fiore, the public relations coordinator for Project OKURASE, emailed Craig. The result was that Craig joined the team in Los Angeles after the Madagascar2 premiere events and a partnership was formed. Okurase village will be learning to make bamboo bicycle frames and eventually the full bike. They will start cutting and curing bamboo later this month. The bamboo has to cure for several months, so the actual frame-making will take place in late April or May. Craig will come to Okurase to do the training. And as all good stories go (e.g., Madagascar movie), there is a Part 2. Tim Wood, who Djole met in Ghana in 2006, has just started a graduate program in International Business at Colorado State University. As part of this program, Tim and his team of three other grad students have formed a business to work with corporations on social responsibility. One of their first tasks is to work with corporations to attain a socially responsible rate on a container of bicycle parts from India or China to support Ghana's bamboo bicycle making. The Project OKURASE team welcomes Craig and his team from Ft. Collins to the Project OKURASE family.
