Toolkit: Mujeres en Movimiento

Last month we hosted a webinar featuring the work of Liz Jose and Casey Ashenhurst of WE Bike NYC. WE Bike NYC is a community of women who ride bikes. They envision a community of bicyclists as diverse as the neighborhoods that comprise New York. In order to conduct more effective outreach to Spanish speaking participants, WE Bike NYC Founder Liz Jose and 2014 Women Bike Mini Grant recipient set out to create a toolkit that provides beginning Spanish language resources for bike clubs.

During the webinar Jose and Ashenhurst discussed the importance of creating meaningful partnerships in your community to connect to diverse populations. They also stressed the importance of listening to the community you are hoping to activate and being flexible.

My favorite line from the toolkit: “Your project may change as you learn from other communities and become more involved. That is exactly what you are going for. Embrace it.”

As bike outreach and encouragement initiatives seek to include more people in their programs, it will be imperative to design and create inclusive resources like the WE Bike NYC Tool Kit. I especially liked the Spanish Glossary resource that provided common words or phrases a bike educator might use in a learn to ride class. For non-Spanish speaking educators like me, this a great way to show solidarity and encouragement for new riders and make an effort to break down barriers in communication.

Watch a recording of the Webinar here that goes in depth on their entire MUJERES EN MOVIMIENTO program:

And download the toolkit for reference in your bike program!