Pay-as-you go bicycle pilot crowdfunding campaign launched! 🚲

More than just a bicycle. Combining traditional pedal power and mobile technologies supporting Zambian women to build greater social-economic well-being.

Onyx Connect, one of our partners in the Frontier Technologies programme, has launched today a crowdfunding campaign -in collaboration with CrowdFund17 and the FT Hub- to raise funds to continue scaling their work.

Onyx Connect has already provided over 300 bicycles across Zambia, improving the livelihoods of female farmers. Now, Wyson Lungu -Onyx CEO -is ready to start a new chapter. With a similar thrill of a teenager riding ‘no-hands’ downhill on a dirt road in Zambia, Wyson is determined to keep going until Onyx achieves their vision of providing over 1 million bicycles by 2030.

Photo by Simon Davis and James Lovage/Unfold Stories.

The immediate objective of this crowdfunding campaign is to raise enough funds to purchase and offer approximately 250 bicycles on pay-as-you-go terms for smallholder dairy farmers in Selected Dairy Cooperatives in Southern Province Choma and Namwala Areas. More importantly, this will allow the business to operate at a volume that will make Onyx Connect a sustainable venture going forward.

According to the World Bank, only 17% of Zambia’s rural population live within 2 km of a good road. So, it comes as no surprise when we hear some of the owners of these bikes talk about the impact it had in their life.

“Since I got this bike, I make a profit. I’ve doubled my income.” says Anick Lubinda a dairy farmer and also volunteer chairperson of the Kaziwa Womens Co-operative in southern Zambia.

For more stories like Anick’s we would invite you to read the “Cycles & Cellphones” story prepared by Unfold Stories in collaboration with Onyx, DFID Zambia, and the FT Hub. We are chuffed to see this story being picked up by The Guardian allowing more people to find out about this initiative that -as I said before- it is definitely more than just a bicycle.

Photo by Simon Davis and James Lovage/Unfold Stories.

Help us to spread the word about this great initiative and support Onyx in their pursuit of raising funds to continue providing bicycles to women dairy milk farmers in Zambia.