My Boo

This article first appeared in our spring ’19 issue of MyGreenPod Magazine, The Organic Revolution, distributed with the Guardian on 31 May 2019. Click here to subscribe to our digital edition and get each issue delivered straight to your inbox

Germany-based social bicycle brand my Boo has at last started distributing its high-quality bamboo bikes in the UK. More than five years after founding the company and selling fantastic bamboo bikes successfully in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, co-founders Jonas Stolzke and Maximilian Schay have decided to have a crack at building a strong dealer network in the UK, too.

Education in Ghana

My Boo is combining applied social responsibility and environmentally responsible behaviour to an innovative and high-quality product series.

The social brand from Kiel, northern Germany works with Booomers – The Yonso Project, a social NGO in Ghana, to produce its bamboo bike frames. The project helps to reduce the high rate of unemployed young people in the Ashanti region, and the income helps to fund scholarships for children. In cooperation with The Yonso Project, my Boo has been able to award over 250 scholarships since 2015.

Education in Ghana is often a privilege of only the wealthier families. The Yonso Project and my Boo are working together to change that by helping to provide a good education for as many children as possible. The Yonso Project Model School is currently under construction; on completion it will provide high-level education for up to 1,000 children.

My Boo has also joined forces with UNICEF for the Bike to School programme. 150 children in Ghana have been given a bamboo bike to ride to school, to simplify the journey from often faraway villages.

Why bamboo?

My Boo Bamboo Bikes are handcrafted and unique, so it takes up to 80 hours to produce each frame. 35 Ghanaians are employed in my Boo frame production, and all receive fair pay and a social insurance.

The bamboo for the frames grows naturally in the Ashanti region in Ghana. ‘Bamboo is a perfect material. It’s as stable as steel, light as aluminium and more comfortable than carbon’, says Jonas Stolzke. ‘All my Boo frames are weatherproof, UV-resistant and provided with a scratchproof varnish!’