To help solve this problem, the Bike Scouts does two things:

PREPAREDNESS

The Bike Scouts' Resilience Workshops are regular and persistent training and learning activities meant to give the knowledge, skills, and resources necessary for people and communities to have the resilience that they need locally.

These workshops include an introduction to what the Bike Scouts' mission to provide an alternative means of access to information, communications, and essential supplies using bicycles, people power, and community-built technology.

The workshop also includes training in bicycle handling, safety, and repair and a complete course on basic and advanced emergency and disaster response skills that may include certifications, where needed.

RESPONSE

The Bike Scouts serves as a platform for social teamwork that has allowed its community to serve as the only continuously-operating volunteer bicycle messenger service for disaster response in the world.

Bike Scouts has over a decade of on-ground experience in responding to all of the major disaster events in the Philippines locally with its local Bike Scouts teams that serve where they live allowing Bike Scouts to be first on the ground maintain a presence long after everyone else has gone when it comes to disaster response.

As a community-led disaster resilience and response initiative, Bike Scouts is the only one in the Philippines with a true community and network of support nationwide with actual experience in on-ground response.

What we need most

Training

Equipment

Mobility

Training is a regular need for us, and we train in all aspects of our work from riding long distances to crossing rivers and high-angle access with our bicycles. The training we do requires resources to conduct the training sessions, maintain equipment, and provide a way for our technical instructors to sustain themselves.

Working on the ground in the aftermath of severe disaster events requires our teams to be prepared for any situation. The equipment we use are all rated for heavy-duty work and reliability. This is necessary for safety for our teams and the people we serve because of the conditions and situations that Bike Scouts teams often have to work in.

At the heart of the Bike Scouts’ response capability are our bicycles that allow us to access places cut-off by disaster events. For the past eleven years Bike Scouts has been the only one capable of access to the most isolated places in the aftermath of disasters using bicycles in the hands of experienced and capable response riders.

Part of the support we get goes to our operational costs that include fees and allowances for our core team that manage community engagement, partnerships, and our instructors for our resilience training programs. Bike Scouts also builds and maintains its own resilience and disaster technology. Being able to provide this helps ensure that our team members can focus on doing our work professionally without the distraction of having the worry about keeping the lights on.

Operations