Indigenous Youth Bike Program

Summary

The Country Cycle Indigenous Bike Program creates meaningful opportunities to teach youth about indigenous traditions and the importance of staying connected to the land. The program will help to instill a sense of pride for a cultural tradition that is amongst the oldest living traditions in the world today. 

Objective

To provide indigenous communities with youth programming that is positive, fun, effective and easy to use. Doing so by using the bicycle as a tool to create opportunities to teach the youth about the land, respect, self-care, tradition, teamwork and competition.

Goals

1) To teach Indigenous youth the value of being out on the land in a fun way.

2) To build a strong sense of self confidence and achievement in the youth through the development of cycling skills and the participation of cycling events.

3) To build a strong sense of community through a cycling program that is inclusive and provides an equal opportunity for everyone. 

 

Biking offers many positive benefits both physically and mentally.

Key physical benefits include:

  •  Obesity and diabetes prevention
  •  Cardiovascular and bone health.

Mental health benefits include:

  •  helping to prevent anxiety and depression.

The Program - Country Cycle Indigenous Bike Program

The aim of this program is to help youth build up their self-esteem and confidence by giving them an outlet to express themselves both emotionally and physically. This is a very important concept in the program. 

Other important positive benefits of biking include:

  • Biking connects us to the land 
  • Biking on the land helps with conditions like anxiety and depression 
  • Biking offers great opportunities to connect the youth with elders 
  • Biking helps fight obesity and diabetes
  • Biking outside creates positive lifelong memories  

For more information please contact us at either [email protected] or [email protected]

You can also call us at the shop. Just ask for Peter - 204-332-0121

Peter (left) and Eric (right). We have teamed up to try and bring the sport of cycling to Indigenous communities.