We need your support
Support the Bike Scouts’ goal of becoming the platform for social teamwork on climate and disaster resilience and for everyday challenges that people face because of the ever-growing scale and frequency of climate-driven disasters and man-made crises.
Social teamwork is based on the Filipino culture of Bayanihan which is about people helping others solve big and small problems with whatever we can share without the expectation of return. Bayanihan is a better way to connect with each other, build things, and to solve problems together because it’s all about the good for all of us rather than just some of us.
↑ This QR Code and button opens Paypal
↑ This QR Code opens the GCash App
The Bike Scouts' work on creating true local resilience is focused on three 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
Being a platform for social teamwork has allowed the Bike Scouts 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.
TECHNOLOGY
The Bike Scouts community builds the technology that we need to do the work that nobody else wants to invest in. This is because while there is no lack of ideas and good intentions in the world there is rarely any real local context in any of the tech-driven approach to true local resilience and response.
There are countless initiatives to build all kinds of things from early warning systems to sensors, connectivity, space-based internet, robotics, platforms, and dashboards. Most of the time, though, these are things that people in communities at the actual frontlines of the climate crisis and other global challenges can't actually afford or build and maintain themselves.
The Bike Scouts response to this challenge is to build on our own all of the technology for solar energy, resilient connectivity, and local disaster monitoring we need together with partners, suppliers, and volunteers so that we can set our own timeline and goals. We design all of our technology in a way that we can share it from development, assembly, and local maintenance with people who need it in their own communities without any requirements or expectation of return. We're designing and building technology that's truly needed and making it genuinely accessible when and where it makes the most difference.
SUPPORT the Bike Scouts' work to build the world's only platform for true social teamwork on local resilience using bicycles for mobility, people power, and community-built technology!
What we need for building our community & technology
The Bike Scouts' priority in terms of technology is to deploy and collect data from an initial set of solar energy kits that can provide for the most essential needs for communications and information of local Bike Scouts teams in disaster vulnerable areas, particularly those in the path of powerful typhoons.
These solar energy kits are capable of providing power for mobile devices, laptops, and small appliances that can help preserve essential supplies for communities that have a very high chance of being impacted by severe typhoons and other disasters.
Having access to resilient power means local Bike Scouts teams can consistently provide real-time reporting and monitoring of disaster events as they happen in their own communities. The information they gather will help make response work more efficient and effective by providing verifiable information about what's needed by whom, and where help and supplies are needed.
What we need for our disaster response work
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
We recommend listening to this podcast to know more about the value of supporting communities directly: