WeCycle is a volunteer-run community bike shed in Northcote.

Our mission:

To provide bicycles to members of the community who would otherwise not have the means to obtain a bicycle and to empower people to maintain their own bicycle and provide accessible learning opportunities for all levels of ability.

History:

Craig Jackson and Gayle Ilievski met at the City of Darebin's Community Leaders in Sustainability Program in 2015.  They discovered a shared passion about bicycles as an affordable and sustainable means of transport that helps address community concerns about pollution, our reliance on fossil fuels and traffic congestion.

Over 2016 Craig and Gayle collected bicycles and worked from their backyards to repair and re-home almost eighty bicycles with refugees and asylum seekers referred by caseworkers from support agencies.

WeCycle moved into a small vacant building in Batman Park, Northcote in January 2017.

A call was put out to volunteers to help work on bicycles.  We have built up a team of more than 25 volunteers and a stock of tools, parts and storage.

Objectives:

WeCycle is proud to be meeting its objectives:

• providing low-cost bicycles to marginalised members of our community

• reducing landfill by repairing and recycling unwanted bicycles

• providing access to cycling and bicycle maintenance as a sustainable means of transport and to reduce pollution and traffic congestion

• helping members of the community to keep fit and healthy

• empowering women to gain access to an independent means of transport

• offer opportunities to enhance community connectedness and social inclusion

Values:

• to re-use old bicycles and bicycle parts to keep environmental impacts and financial costs low, thereby keeping useful resources from going to landfill.

•  we advocate environmental preservation and conservation by encouraging the use of the bicycle as a sustainable form of transportation and recreation

• we promote cycling as a safe, viable and affordable transport option.

• we are not-for profit and any surplus will go back into the project.