Turning rust into opportunity.
An Old Bike:
A New Luck!
A practical mission of reuse, upskilling, and social inclusion
In October and November 2022, Re-Act Association launched “An Old Bike: A New Luck!” — a two-part social initiative dedicated to empowering disadvantaged youth from the Correctional Boarding School “Angel Uzunov” in Rakitovo, Bulgaria. The project combined vocational training, sustainability, and social impact into one meaningful workshop series.
Over the course of two months, 17 teenagers aged 14–17 participated in hands-on bicycle repair workshops, learning the basics of mechanical maintenance, tool handling, and teamwork. Under the guidance of two experienced mentors and with the support of Re-Act volunteers, the young participants refurbished over 15 old and discarded bicycles, restoring them into fully functioning bikes ready for a second life.
The restored bicycles were then donated to local children in need from the Rakitovo area—providing not just a mode of transport, but a symbol of care, community, and second chances.
The project also served as a soft entry point to vocational orientation for the youth involved. Many of them—some with limited prior exposure to structured learning or technical education—were inspired to pursue further skill-building opportunities.
Old bicycles collected from donations
The Story of the Velo-Workshop
A little over a year ago, the Re-Akt team began the realization of a youthful dream – to ride a bike. With the help of the people from the Fix&Ride bike shop and the administrators of the leading Bulgarian mountain biking forum www.mtb-bg.com, we experimentally launched the campaign “Your Old Bike”. The idea was born from several not-so-random coincidences – on the one hand, we implemented a project with the boys from the boarding school in Rakitovo and we wanted to teach them something useful, on the other hand, we wanted to show them that the combination of useful and pleasant is possible and, most importantly, one can have fun while working.
The idea for Velo-Workhop came suddenly – in a short time, the Re-Akt team and partners realized that maintaining, repairing and riding a bicycle is something that meets all our criteria. And what could be better than teaching a boy to ride a bike or taking care of him as a friend. The problem at the beginning was that we had a budget of less than 480 leva, which meant we couldn’t buy more than one bike, and for about 60 young people this was extremely insufficient equipment. Thus began the first campaign – dozens of people from all over the country got involved by donating and giving away old bicycles and parts for them. With the available budget, we provided tools, tires and other details to get to the spring of 2013, when the major renovation began:
