Myanmar: Less Walk – Excess global bike share surplus get kids to school

An inspiring good news story from Myanmar where bicycles really are creating more positive social and environmental change!

Recently, I came across an article written by Phoe Wah in The Myanmar Times detailing a local tech entrepreneur’s social enterprise which uses global bike-sharing surplus to get more rural Myanmar kids to school.

Fantastic!

For more: see the Less Walk website for more and the Less Walk YouTube channel here.

Here is an overview of that the project below*.

Like many young students across Myanmar, Saw, Suu Lel had to walk for miles to reach school from his small Kayin village. Every morning he would wake at 5 am to make it to his morning class, and would only return at dusk after walking for another hour to get home. The long commute was an added source of stress for the young scholar as it took time away from his homework. Coming from a poor family, Saw, Suu Lel also wished to help his parents but the distance is too great to reach their workplace by foot. However, Saw, Suu Lel tedious routine or changed overnight. Like the other students in the village, he received a brand-new bicycle.

“I’m really happy about having an Obike (a former model of the bike-sharing company). I’ve never owned one“ said the seventh grader.

Since the day the bikes arrived, the morning streets in the village look very different. A line of yellow bikes, written by delighted students, makes its way through the main streets towards the school.

Mike Than Tun, the founder of the Myanmar technology company BOD Tech Venture is behind this goodwill gesture. Aside from investing in tech projects around the country, the 33-year-old businessman doubles as a philanthropist. His main area of interest is education.

“Education is the best way to alleviate poverty” is Mike Than Tun’s mantra. The bikes are aimed at giving school children a more efficient and fun way to get to school. According to Mike, many students drop out of school because when they move to middle and high school the schools are very far away from the villages with some walking up to 2 hours in the early morning. When it rains, walking times can be extended even further.

“Less walking will help the student save 80% of their travel time. We believe having Bikes will improve absenteeism and overall lateness giving more time for students to study and allow them to focus in class. It’s also safer for female students as I can reach home before dark,” said Mike Than Tun.

Having lived for nearly 18 years in Singapore, Mike Than Tun realized the extent of the problem during his travels to rural Myanmar. On his travels across the countryside, he remembered seeing lines of young students walking long distances to school. He realized that many families could not afford a bicycle and seeing a school bus was a rarity.

Myanmar imports large quantities of used bicycles from Thailand and Japan which can provide much-needed form of cheap transportation for some people. Despite the secondhand imports, many families still can’t afford a used bicycle.

His idea first took shape in 2018 when the Chinese bike-sharing provider Obike announce bankruptcy and their companies Ofo and Mobike withdrew from the Southeast Asia market. This left plenty of spare bicycles abandoned, available for scrap dealers or recycling plants.

“It is extremely heartbreaking to see the amount of money and resources wasted white sharing companies that all ended up at scrap. A new bicycle is estimated to cost between USD$ 150-200 to manufacture now all ends up as a huge social and public nuisance. It’s sad that rich nations might not know how to treasure such a simple necessity. But for people in need, it can make a huge impact and even be life-changing,” said Tun.

Through his initiative Less Walk.com, the philanthropist buys and imports the obsolete bike-sharing bicycles into Myanmar at a fraction of the original cost and distributes them for free to students living below the poverty line. Students who benefit the most typically walk over two kilometres a day and are enrolled in grade 6 – 10. Since last June, the Less Walk project has already imported 10,000 brand-new Obikes.

“We will modify the bicycles to add a seat in the back so that siblings can ride to school. We will also remove the digital lock and replace it with a regular lock for the students” Mike added.

So far, Mike’s charity has already helped students in Sagaing, Yangong, Mon and Thanithariyi regions and the founder intends to cover other places in Myanmar in the future. Words of his good deeds have travelled as far as America, Netherlands, Japan and China where people started to donate bikes to his project.

Mike hopes to expand the program from 10,000 bikes to 100,000 bikes in two years.

“We want to raise awareness that the circular economy is possible and one man’s problems can be another man’s opportunity” he said.

*Main content and all images sourced from Phoe Wah’s article and Less Walk. Some content is edited.