Economics alum Shawnt Bazikian (A.B. ’20) is the co-founder of One Bicycle Foundation, a charity that has delivered more than 1,000 bicycles to orphans at 20 schools in nine countries, including the United States. He lives in Los Angeles, where he works as an associate at the Levine Leichtman Family Office, an investment firm in Beverly Hills. LSA spoke with Bazikian about youth philanthropy, interorganizational collaboration, and the world’s cutest businessman from Armenia.
LSA: How did One Bicycle get its start?
Shawnt Bazikian: We had a family friend who was a director of an orphanage in Kenya. She was over for dinner one day in 2012, when I was 16, and we, as a family, were speaking about how we might help. She went through the normal laundry list of things we could buy: shoes, toiletries, health products, things like that. But then she casually mentioned that these kids walk two hours to school. That’s obviously shocking, and it was just a passing comment from her. At the time, and still today, my brother [Sebouh] was really passionate about cycling, and he threw out that with bicycles, we could help improve this problem.
Long story short, that project turned into a charity bike race among family and friends. And it raised close to $5,000; we were able to purchase some bikes locally and ship them to Machao Orphanage Foundation in Makueni, Kenya, in August of 2013. My brother went on that first trip. We delivered the bikes, and then I thought, “We’re good here. That was fun.”
But then we started hearing the stories of how the kids were, all of a sudden, excited to go to school. We got data that grades and attendance were improving [and heard that] the kids have more time to do things that they actually want to do. And that’s when the light bulb went off. Ever since, we’ve refined the whole process of how to raise money, deliver bicycles, monitor progress, and be impactful with every dollar we spend.
LSA: What has your journey as an organization been like?
SB: Initially, we didn’t have a good grasp of logistics. We didn’t have any international contacts, and so we had to fundraise [in the United States] and then ship the bikes over. But then it got complicated, because when the bikes got there, how would we deliver them? Starting in 2014, we now work with a wonderful organization called World Bicycle. They’re global, and their general objective is to get bicycles in the hands of those who need them for a range of purposes, not just education. They were a perfect match, because we were great at identifying these specific orphanages or schools that needed bicycles, and they had local manufacturing operations within these countries. They hire local labor, and being able to help the local economy simplifies our logistics. It felt right.
LSA: Do you have a particular story that you would like to share?
SB: I just remember this one kid in Armenia who would wear the same outfit every day: dress shirt, suit jacket, and a flip phone in his pocket that didn’t work. He would whip it out every now and then to take fake phone calls. He was eight, on the younger end of the students we supply bikes to. But he shows that there’s that spirit: dreaming, being someone who he’s not yet.
There are lots of these stories. One of them is about a kid named Boaz from one of our Kenya deliveries. We gave him a bike six years ago, and three years ago we heard he was the assistant deputy to the mayor of his town. And it’s just really cool to see something like that. Did the bike help? Hopefully! Maybe it gave him more time to pursue certain interests that led him to that position.
You can’t put a limit on what these kids can do when you give them some time. They’re so resourceful, like turning the bikes into something that can carry produce to a local market. We love that the possibilities are larger than just a transportation method to school.
LSA: What’s on the horizon for you and One Bicycle?
SB: We’re really proud of our youth philanthropy program. The one thing we can do that pays dividends into the future is sharing some of the knowledge that we have about how to start a foundation, how to throw an effective fundraiser, how to identify problems, how to speak to donors.
We’ve already helped one of the people in our program with his first fundraiser. He’s been on top of us ever since with new ideas he has and things he wants to do. He’s in the eighth grade, so he’s already beating us by four years from when we started.
LSA: What is your advice for future young philanthropists?
SB: It’s simpler than you think to start something really important. We didn’t have our 100-year plan from day one. It was like, “We’ll try it out. If it works, it works. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t.
”There’s so much you learn from the first step that it becomes easier to take the next step. Dig down deep, figure out what your passion is, and think about how your expertise in your passion can be applied to something good.
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| Category: | Alumni |
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| Tags: | LSA; Economics; LSA Magazine; Social Sciences; Stephanie Wong |
