Fabulous Partnerships: Working with the ICA

James Coates, Bike Education Coordinator

Photos by Steven Baileys

Capital Bike has a long history of working with many fantastic community groups and doing our part to support their work: the Victoria Immigrant & Refugee Centre Society (VIRCS), the Inter-Cultural Association of Greater Victoria (ICA), Our Place, Mustard Seed, many local community centres, local schools, and more.

In the fall of 2021, we were approached by the District of Saanich to run an event called “Try an E-Bike” at the ICA. Students in their English language training courses, staff, and volunteers were able to experience e-bikes in fun workshops taught by our Bike Skills Instructors.

Over two days, we guided groups of 12 participants through an hour-long course that included a classroom presentation, parking lot bike handling lessons, and a fun guided road ride. The ride was a particular hit, as participants got to experience what an e-bike can really do.

This course presented us with fun new challenges as well as fantastic opportunities. It was a challenge to update all our presentations and lessons for a variety of English levels. With help from the kind staff at the ICA, as well as the fact that fun on e-bikes translates extremely well to any language, we were able to keep the course engaging and fun for all. Smiling faces in the pictures from the twoday program prove it.

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It was a great opportunity to build a new partnership with the ICA. We got to learn about the fantastic work they do to support newcomers to Victoria, especially as Capital Bike is proud to be a recent addition to the Community Partnership Network; a group of over 300 local organizations committed to building diverse, welcoming, and inclusive communities in Greater Victoria, and is led by the ICA.

We’re grateful to the ICA, District of Saanich, CRD, and City of Victoria for supporting this fun bike event, and look forward to building sustainable, longlasting partnerships to support active transportation for newcomers to Canada in the future.

Proud to support active transportation across BC

Hon. Murray Rankin

MLA, OAK BAY - GORDON HEAD Murray.Rankin.MLA@leg.bc.ca / 250-472-8528

Spring 2022  15