ARTICLE FROM THE BOOK:
Cyclists & Cycling Around the World – Creating Liveable
andBikeableCities
Cyclists& Cycling
Aroundthe World
Edited by Juan Carlos Dextre, Mike Hughes & Lotte Bech
Published by Fondo Editorial, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, 2013
ISBN: 978-612-4146-55-8

Cycle events - Teaching children for abikeable Lima
By Jessica Tantaleán, Special Project Metropolitan of Transport NonMotorised, Metropolitan Municipality of Lima, Peru

The bicycle: an educational tool for sustainability
More and more cities define their sustainability guidelines in relation to the problemsand impact of transportation systems, and adopt new concepts of sustainable mobility
for city planning and managing urban travel and space in the city. The global trend toimprove our cities and how we get around in them means leaving the traditional view oftransport and beginning to visualise a city where walking, cycling and public transporttake centre stage.
Education is the main axis providing the opportunity to keep ourselves updated, renew
ourselves and to have a vision which is more consistent with the challenges ahead.
Therefore, this axis runs through all programmes and actions that the Special Project forNon-Motorised Transport (CICLOLIMA) has been developing. We will not move on fromthe misconceptions entrenched in our habits if we don’t educate ourselves, nor will oursocieties progress if we don’t educate the young.
The bicycle has become a strategy and an opportunity to begin to open people’s minds
and to redefine the boundaries of building a sustainable mobility system in Lima.
The CICLOLIMA team has integrated its various bicycle programmes and activities(Recreational Ciclovia, CICLODIA, Educational Program for Sustainable Mobility “Bicicole”,Night Green, Fairs Cyclist and Fetibici, U.Bici University Educational Program) to create asystem in which the different modes of transport exist harmoniously within urban space.
It has created space where the educator and the learner reflect on the role they play andfulfill their responsibility, and how to contribute to the solution of the huge problems

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Cycle FairUniversity Seminar
EducationalProgramme UBICI

3rd Edition ofThe Green Nightof the city resulting from its unsustainable transport system. These different programmes
give us the opportunity to get closer and closer to the changes we seek in our society,both in the classroom and in suitable and safe public spaces.

The strategic training of trainers in citizenship: the ZOOM project
It is no coincidence that most of our team began their careers as educators in thepioneering project “Humanising Transport”, also known as “ZOOM” - in charge ofFONAM and funded by the World Bank from 2005 to 2008. This school programme forsustainable urbanisation took them to schools around Lima to teach urban citizenshipand provide environmental education, with the bicycle as an icon and tool. It was hard
work, which did not begin in the classroom. The first workshops on urban cycling, roadsafety and environmental quality were given to students in streets and parks. In view ofthe good work and enthusiasm, little by little, the principals were persuaded to open
the playgrounds and then the classrooms, where the project was consolidated for thebenefit of children.

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Cyclists & Cycling Around the World

Proyecto Zoom
Photo: Ciclolima File

The bicycle in schools, inside and outside the classroom:
BICICOLE Programme
The Metropolitan Municipality of Lima, through CICLOLIMA, decided to continue andimprove the project ZOOM, and make it the School Education Programme “BiciCole”
fundamental axis of our strategy aimed at schoolchildren in the city. With this programme,
we continue innovating the national education system for children between 9 and 12years, through workshops on coexistence and citizenship, road safety, environmentalissues, and practical urban cycling. The programme was expanded with two activities
that promote environmental protection and sustainable mobility: the “EnvironmentalBrigades” and “To School by Bike”, respectively, programmes carried out by biology
teachers and university volunteer teams trained by us with those who promote
environmental campaigns and rides to school, that amuse and stimulate the children.
It was challenging to get the support of teachers to strengthen and expand the programme.
However, with great effort, agreements were reached and ZOOM educational material
was improved and became manuals that met the technical requirements of teachers,
principals and the Ministry of Education. With that, we reestablished our relationshipwith former colleagues and joined new partners, repeating the programme to the greatinterest of the Ministry of Education, which aims to replicate the experience nationwide.

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‘Bike to School’ Programme
Photo: Ciclolima File

The “BiciCole” programme works because it manages to be included in the educational
curriculum of three courses through our monitoring, supervision, and provision andmaintenance of bicycles. The year 2012 closed the programme with 90,000 students from
11 schools in Lima. This year, 40 new schools in popular districts of Lima will be added.
The influence of BiciCole reaches family and friends in their homes and communities.
Parents support the programme, because they allow their children to stay longer when
there are special workshops. Before, they had a concept of just recreational cycling. Today
they have a broader view thanks to lessons with their children. For example, the founding
professor (senior), Ada Lopez, considered it wonderful and rewarding to learn to ridea bike as an adult through the programme. The bike has solved the problem of lack ofexercise, except for walking at the weekend with her family. It has also influenced thehabits of her home: “My husband went by car to buy bread three blocks away. He now
goes by bike and, as it is not very far away and if he wants a bit more pedaling, he cycles
to a bakery that is further away. “290

Cyclists & Cycling Around the WorldSpace for fun and competitive education: FESTIBICISCHOOLCHILDREN
Similarly, the “FestiBici” have been characterized by their effective drawing power.
Thousands of schoolchildren from the capital involved in contests to make your school”Champion of Champions FestiBici Metropolitan”. Through games, drama, dances and crafts,
the students put into practice the knowledge acquired in the BiciCole. It is a space thatencourages more schools to become involved, in addition to those involved in the regularprogramme, and allows other sustainable transport authorities to interact with learners.
The FestiBici raises children’s awareness in an educational and fun way about theimportance of using non-polluting means of transport such as walking, cycling, biking,skating and use public transport systems. This is facilitated by the creativity reflected in
the different competitions of FestiBici.

Student at the Festibici Competition
Photo: Ciclolima File291

Day of the bike - 6 km of Llife and Health on Ave. Arequipa(Ciclolima File)

Each date FestiBici develops in the Northern, Southern, Eastern and Central City, andbrings together teachers and students to enjoy a day full of music, games, contests,and entertainment, surrounded by a circuit of activities, where promotion stands are
positioned with information from each of the organisations involved in the programmeand others that contribute to sustainable mobility in Lima: the Ministries of Environment
and Education, Electric Train Autonomous Authority (Metro de Lima), Protransporte (BRT“Metropolitan”), and the Municipal Managers of Education, Culture and Environment.

The street, unique space for forming citizenship:
recreational bikeways
While we feel better in the streets and we want to stay longer in them, we will have abetter quality of life and coexistence. However, when we grow up in a hostile, violent
and insecure environment, which only rewards and protects the world of the car, theformation and change are more difficult. So, having adequate space is extremely
important for the learning application for children and, at the same time, allows them toshare the experience with their parents.
The city of Lima, a large city that is home to a third of the country’s population, is a flatand rainy city, with relatively moderate temperatures. The attributes that make the capital
bike-friendly are enviable, but even so is not considered by locals as a city for cycles.

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Cyclists & Cycling Around the WorldThe bike has a totally different background from any other mode of transport, requiring
an initial effort to transform human energy into forward momentum. Therefore, it isnecessary to develop habits and customs in Lima to make cycling popular, which is why
we consider it important to work with schools.
If children learn to use the bicycle as a mode of everyday transport, over time it may break
the association between car use and social status or success. The programmes in the schools
are good and have achieved active participation of children and teachers. However, it mustnot be seen only as an activity in the schools, thus CICLODIA programme, which is held
every Sunday over the 6 km of Arequipa Avenue, one of the most historic and elegant
streets in Lima, allows only the use of bicycles and non-motorised modes of transport.
Thus, children have the opportunity to use their bikes with their parents, siblings,
grandparents and friends, contributing to the improvement of family relationships
and promoting social dynamics in public space. This allows people of different social,economic and physical status living in different parts of the city, to share urban spacecharacterised by equality and traffic safety. The children, who are excluded from themain streets on the other days of the week since they are unsafe and threatening, are thebig winners on Sundays: one third of the users are children.
“When you enter a Recreational Bikeway, you feel that it is just the perfectcommunity, protecting, caring and sharing and you feel safe.”(Survey, Lima Cómo vamos, 2012)
Therefore, reinforce the great value of the Recreational Bikeways. Their strategic valuein education and training citizenship should be integrated into a government plan, as isdone in many cities (Recreational Bikeways of Americas).

Conclusion
Sustainable mobility, in particular cycling, is gaining strength in cities of all sizes, providing
clean transport and a quiet, friendly and healthy environment. It’s becoming a symbol ofthe values ​​that we should encourage in children, also developing motor skills, promoting
health by performing physical activity, improving balance, and allowing them to integrate
and understand the social and urban environment. This makes the bike a teaching tool, an
educational resource that is necessary to promote and advance the welfare and harmonyof our current and future society, both in the classroom, through educational programmes,and outside them, in an appropriate and safe area such as recreational bikeways.
Jessica Tantaleán Noriega
jessieperu@hotmail.com

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