About 80 students at Natividad Pagan International Newcomers Academy will be riding around Cleveland on new wheels this summer.
A few different Cleveland-area organizations teamed up to give bikes to the students, which will also help them get to summer activities and school in the fall.
In general, K-8 students in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District (CMSD) don’t get bussing if they live within one mile of their school. CMSD offers high schoolers free RTA bus passes instead of transporting them on school buses.
Natividad Pagan Academy serves students in kindergarten through high school who recently moved to Cleveland from other countries. The school’s curriculum focuses on learning the English language and American culture.
Around 900 students currently go to the school in the city’s Clark-Fulton neighborhood. But that number changes as students transfer out after they sharpen their English skills over one to two years.
Khwater Nayef, the refugee services coordinator for CMSD, initially reached out to Joseph House of Cleveland, a local nonprofit that organizes the giveaway, because she noticed a need for bikes among the students at Natividad Pagan Academy, she said. The giveaway has gotten bigger every year, she said.
The first year in America can be difficult for people moving from other countries, particularly refugees fleeing humanitarian crises and war, Nayef said. Having a bike can help young newcomers be more independent and get to know their new community, she said.
“I came as a refugee back in 2007 from Iraq,” Nayef said. “I have three kids, so I know what makes those kids happy and what they need, especially in the first year of arriving in the United States.”
Angelique Nikuze, a student at Natividad Pagan Academy, plans to ride her new bike to summer school, she said.
Joseph House bought most of the bikes and gave each student a lock, but the Village Bicycle Cooperative in Bay Village also fixed up and donated about 30 of their bikes. The Ohio Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics chipped in helmets for the students.
Joseph House first started distributing bikes a few years ago when newcomers from Afghanistan started talking about challenges getting to and from work and English classes, said Executive Director Maureen Powers. More than 1,400 refugees from Afghanistan have moved to Cleveland since the Taliban took control of the country in 2021.
“Bikes really give them a little bit of freedom and get them to feel more at home in this city at a quicker pace than if they weren’t to have one,” Powers said.
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