Report for 2022-2023: MJ Piki in Tanzania
Message from Claire Elsdon, MJ PIki founder:
Over the last year, MJ Piki has continued to flourish and drive impact. Founder Claire Elsdon was delighted to spend 6 weeks with the team in Mwanza, Tanzania last autumn. This was a great opportunity to reconnect in person with the team after a 2.5 year separation largely from covid, run fresh training materials and generate new ideas. One key new concept is a need to provide proper motorcycle boots for the local community. Such boots are totally unavailable in local shops and markets but of course are critical in reducing the incidence and severity of ankle/foot breaks in the eventuality of a crash, which typically stands at a 69% likelihood for an average motorcycle taxi rider in Mwanza in any given year according to a study by AMEND. MJ Piki have teamed up with UK charity Sal’s Shoes, who are able to ship bulk donations of boots to Tanzania for us (largely) for free. This fantastic opportunity is one that we are keen to maximise and will be looking to the summer motorcycle festival circuit in particular to encourage riders to donate any pairs in good condition that they no longer use.
Aside from that, training in the local community, especially amongst schoolchildren and rider groups continues, and excitingly we have a new recruit who is learning to ride with us. Vicky was living opposite Claire and Khalid during their stay in Mwanza and noticed the MJ Piki women riders regularly riding to their house for meetings. She was amazed to see these brave, confident women with their smart, safe-looking bikes and soon asked how she could join. We are thrilled to welcome her to the team and are actively looking for another rider to train up. This training would cost approximately Gbp400.
MJ Piki thanks WIMA for your ongoing sisterhood and support and looks forward to presenting the proposal for WIMA Tanzania later this year!
Greeting from Claire and the MJ Piki team!
The boots project – the MJ Piki women are making motorcycle boots sought after and desirable to wear. This is ground-breaking and will have a positive impact on riders personal safety and minimize injuries.
What has WIMA done for MJ Piki?
To my knowledge, the following efforts have been made since last year:
WIMA Word performed fundraising in support of MJ Piki at the international rally in Switzerland. This resulted in some money collected which, to my knowledge was taken care of by the organisation team (I have sent an inquiry about the amount and can report on that later) and an auction which raised 51 pounds, which was paid in to MJ Piki by Sheonagh Ravensdale
WIMA Sweden collected 450 Swedish crowns at the FEnoMenAL MC träff in Värmland which will form part of the funding of the training of a new recruit. (This has not yet been transferred)
Presentation and fundraising is currently being prepared for the international rally in France.
Åsa Öhqvist has given two zoom presentations about MJ Piki, one in Swedish where WIMA Norway and WIMA Sweden were the target audience and one in English where the target audience was WIMA World. The latter had Claire, Catherine and Jaqueline from MJ Piki participating for a Q&A session.
The English language presentation was recorded in order to make it shareable with the wider WIMA community. The presentation has not yet been uploaded to WIMA Worlds Youtube channel, but you can view it here: https://youtu.be/HQExGrDXF5k
I hope that WIMA will vote in favour of continued support for MJ Piki and the valuable work that the women do on a daily basis in Tanzania! Our aim for next year could be to raise the amount to fund Vicky’s training.
Åsa Öhqvist
Pikilily Ambassador
