Our Mission
We are a Danish non-profit who are fundraising donations in order to send used bikes from Western Europe to Ukrainian cities, where they are desperately needed by citizens. The humble bicycle is a vital tool in rural and urban areas devasted by war. Bikes help people get food, medicine and supplies, as well as transport to doctors and schools.
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Bikes4Ukraine.org
Bikes4Ukraine is registered as an association in Denmark and has a fundraising permit from the relevant Danish authorities. Currently, the association has three board members, founder Mikael Colville-Andersen, Mathias Gram-Olander and Tina Vilfan.
The sole goal of the association is to fundraise in order to send used bikes to Ukrainian cities. The money we raise goes directly to transporting bikes, administration fees and travel-related costs for when we go to Ukraine to deliver the bikes.
In Ukraine, our team of tireless volunteers include Vadym Denysenko, Orest Oleskiv, Lyana Mytsko, Pavlo Gluck. The City of Lviv has been instrumental in helping get our project started in Ukraine and the Lviv Art Center is a key partner.
The current team in Copenhagen includes Mikael Colville-Andersen, Bergen Jome and Michael Sørensen.
During the start-up phase of the project, an amazing team of volunteers provided expertise to create the campaign and the website. Getting this started wouldn’t have been possible without their help.
Thanks to Anna Ax (graphic design), Philip Morley (copywriter), Tina Vilfan (event organiser), Lars Hartmann (web design), Michael Sørensen (web developer/printing), Lukas Lunow (digital marketing) and Mathias Gran-Olander (photo and co-creation).
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Our story began in April, 2022
Founder Mikael Colville-Andersen received an email from urban planning colleagues in Lviv, who thought that bikes could be a solution to the mobility challenges in that city, where 200,000 internally displaced people were living. The city’s population had suddenly increased by 28% and that put pressure on public transport and traffic congestion, since many IDPs also arrived by car from other parts of Ukraine.
Mikael instantly agreed to figure out how to get used bikes from Denmark to Lviv, and started an association to make it happen. A fantastic group of volunteers in Denmark got together and created the first graphic design, web design, website build and all the elements to get the project started, including a crowdfunding campaign on Fundrazr.
The first phase culminated on 3 July, 2022, when a bike collection event took place in Copenhagen. Citizens donated bikes and both the Copenhagen Police and the NGO Baisikeli contributed in order to fill up the first truck, which was sponsored by Carlsberg Ukraine. The first 100 bikes were sent at the end of the day.
Mikael went to Lviv to meet the truck and start distributing the bikes at six drop-off points in three cities: Lviv, Bucha and Chernihiv.
By early 2024, Bikes4Ukraine has now delivered 1000 bicycles to our growing network of Ukrainian NGOs in over 35 cities and towns.
Goal One
Maintaining an ongoing crowdfunding through Fundrazr to raise funds from around the world in order to finance the shipment of used bikes to Ukrainian cities.
Goal Two
Sourcing used bikes - primarily in Denmark - where 400,000 bikes a year are scrapped and arranging for shipping them to Ukraine. We expanded into other European countries after summer 2022, and have collected bikes in Berlin, Ghent and Budapest.
The original goal was 2000 bikes but after our recent trips to Ukraine we know that tens of thousands of bikes are needed.
Goal Three
Delivering the bikes to the cities in Ukraine who have asked for our help. The list includes Lviv, Bucha, Chernihiv, Mykolaiv and Dnipro.
The bikes go to internally-displaced refugees as well as both citizens, social workers and NGOs who use them to get to town to source food, medicine and humanitarian aid as well as delivering the same things to people who don’t have the chance to get into town.