By Reem Khan | Project Manager
Dear friends and supporters,
I hope this update finds you all in good spirits!
The Rickshaw Project has come a long way since our last update. After a year of experimentation and trial, and finally finding the perfect retrofitting solution, the team (Mustafa, Imran, Pervaiz, Mohammad Ali, Rauf, and Reem) with a lot of help from Nabil and Omair (the core NOWPDP team) have made a rather huge decision - we're selling off our second-hand rickshaws and purchasing brand new ones. Let me explain further...
While our second-hand, retrofitted rickshaws were little miracles that have given us in depth knowledge and understanding of, well, rickshaws, we decided it would be better to have brand new ones until we have the funds to hire our own in-house mechanic and run our own mini-workshop for small repairs and day-to-day maintenance.
New rickshaws are more fuel efficient and reliable. The retrofitting for accessibility will be done by the manufacturer, ensuring quality and safety. We also want to encourge the widespread manufacturing/sale of hand-controlled rickshaws, so that anyone with a disability has access to them, not just people working with The Rickshaw Project. We feel it's another small step towards inclusion and equal access.
We've got a good price for each of the second-hand rickshaws, and will be using the funds to purchase new ones. Your donations will still be utilized in the same way; however, since there will be no need to retrofit, the funds will suppliment the money we get from the sale of the second-hand rickshaws, and go towards buying new ones.
Your help and support has given us the tools to truly understand everything before we begin scaling, and to make all the right choices to ensure long-term sustainability. For that, we thank you.
Feel free to email me with any questions you my have - reem@nowpdp.org
PS - We are however, keeping the rickshaw that we experimented on, and that brought everything and everyone together. We just can't let her go.
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