Vancity Member Designs Bicycle Ambulances For Africa: Bambulance Debuts at Emily Carr Tonight
Bambulance, the newest generation of Bicycle Ambulances for Africa, debuts at the Emily Carr Grad Show tonight. Come visit the latest bamboo version of our steel-framed bike ambulances May 3-11 at the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design, Granville Island Campus. Opening night May 3 7-9pm, May 4-11 10am-6pm daily. Free
Tonight in Vancouver, the newest generation of our Bicycle Ambulances for Africa (and elsewhere) debuts at The Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design Grad Show.
Bambulance is a revolutionary design, built on the success of our steel-framed bicycle ambulances. Nearly 60 of the steel-framed models are operating in Namibia and Malawi, where they have been saving thousands of lives the past few years.
Bambulance is the graduating project of Emily Carr design students Chris Ryan and Philippa Mennell, under the mentorship of Design For Development's co-founder and designer of the original steel-framed Bicycle Ambulances, Niki Dun.
The Bambulance stretcher is made almost entirely form bamboo, which is universally available, incredibley strong and resilient, environmentally-low impact, and inexpensive. Please visit our website www.bambulance.ca
After rigorous testing here in Vancouver, the Bambulance Pilot Project will roll in the Mathare slum (population 500,000) in Nairobi Kenya in the fall. In Mathare, we will be partnering with HEART, The Community Transformers, and WEEP:
Health Africa Resource Team (HEART) was founded in 2000 to address the HIV/AIDS epidemic in East Africa through health education and medical treatment. HEART is dedicated to empowering Kenyans through access to education and resources, thereby creating healthy lives for themselves and their communities.
Community Transformers are a group of Kenyan youth, based in the Mathare slum. They act as community HIV/AIDS educators, mentors to younger children, and reliefgivers to HIV/AIDS caregivers. DFD will teach the Community Transformers how to build, run and maintain the Bambulances. The group will then be able to use the income generated from the production of the Bambulances to support and sustain their activities.
The Women’s Empowerment and Education Project (WEEP) assists and enables women suffering from HIV/AIDS. By providing women with medical care, access to ARV drugs, nutrition, counseling, school uniforms for their children, and training in needlework, WEEP allows HIV+ women to escape poverty and be healthy mothers to their children. WEEP groups will create the sewn parts of the Bambulance-stretcher, overhead awnings, seat-covers and more.
We Invite Vancity Members to Support our Pilot Project for Bambulance in Kenya, and our other wonderful Design For Development Projects. Help us show the world what Vancity members are capable of doing.
To make a donation, or for more information, please contact
Pat Bayes
Design For Development
Fund Development, Corporate and Public Relations
Tel. 604.707.0483 Email pat@designfordevelopment.org
www.designfordevelopment.org www.bambulance.ca
