Community center «Velowerkstatt am See»

The bicycle as a connecting element

Velafrica connects people. Our aim is to create space for people to meet and promote social mixing through our work on bicycles. People often live in separate, isolated environments, especially in urban areas. This effect is amplified when people with a refugee background try to gain a foothold in an environment that is initially foreign and unfamiliar to them.

There is a need to create space for exchange. This is so that people of different origins, ages and living conditions can experience the contexts of each other’s living environments through common goals and develop mutual understanding.

With the open bike workshop, we want to close a gap, create space for these encounters and break down barriers through real encounters through a shared and meaningful goal. This is more important today than ever.

Are you interested in taking part? You can find all the information about the volunteer workshop here.

Meaningful work around bicycles

On the one hand, our aim is to facilitate encounters in a meaningful context around bicycles. On the other hand, to develop mutual understanding for the situation of other people through exchange and to offer people with a refugee background concrete help with the challenges of everyday life.

• Breaking down barriers between people: Working together on a meaningful goal creates the opportunity for unmediated exchange between people from Switzerland and people with a refugee background. This exchange is valuable and helps to be understanding of each other’s life situations.
• Concrete help with everyday issues for volunteers with a refugee background: As the project is primarily aimed at people who are new to Switzerland, assistance can be provided through contacts and recommendations on various everyday issues (housing, insurance, private infrastructure, etc.).
• Hands-on language practice: Regular collaboration creates a familiar atmosphere in which mistakes are allowed. The aim here is to get to know and learn the German language in this atmosphere. This practical on-the-job language learning reduces inhibitions and actively encourages trial and error and practical learning. The thematic framing of bicycle repair creates a defined practice area in which initial learning success can be achieved.
• Gather first impressions of the professional world: By working together, the volunteers with a refugee background can gather first impressions of important values and norms in the Swiss professional world (punctuality, commitment, politeness, etc.). If necessary, direct contacts are made in the primary labor market through other volunteers (networking). After the first two months, people with a refugee background can receive feedback from the workshop supervisor if they want to.
• Improve the bicycle know-how of residents of the Egelsee and the surrounding neighborhoods:
  We offer two options:
  1. Pedalo: repair your own bike under professional guidance (weekends only).
  2. Velafrica: Repair bicycles intended for export to Africa and gain bicycle know-how in the process (during the week).
  This also contributes to the city of Bern’s goal of becoming Switzerland’s cycling capital by 2030.

The workshop is here to stay

At the end of the project, the workshop at Lake Egelsee should be self-supporting. By establishing operational processes and by repairing around 1,500 bikes per year, the community center «Velowerksatt am See» can refinance itself. The inclusion of regular CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) events plays an important part in financing the workshop. As part of a paid social engagement, companies work – together with volunteers – on donated bicycles for a day and thus acquire knowledge about how to repair them.

We are dependent on your donation in order to set up the new workshop, equip it with the necessary tools, pay the rent and ensure transportation of the bikes to the new workshop in the long-term.

Sustainable Development Goals

The «Velowerkstatt am See» has a direct impact on the following United Nations SDGs: 3, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13