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Daune
Fraser's Pedal Foot Courier Service
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Business Profile
Stabroeknews, January 18th 2008 (Guyana)
Daune Fraser's story is as fine an example of ambition and enterprise
as any that you are likely to find among young women anywhere in
Guyana. Each week, from Monday to Friday, the lithe, engaging 26
year-old pedals her bicycle through the streets of Georgetown and its
environs for as many as 8 hours a day, delivering mail and packages for
the bicycle courier service which she has owned and operated since
April last year.
Two years ago Daune started to work as a bicycle courier for Pedal Foot
Bicycle Courier Service. Last year, when the founder of the business
migrated she bought the company.
It is, she says, a challenging niche in a market that still relies
mostly on conventional delivery services. However, as the increasing
number of motor vehicles impede each other's progress on the city
streets, the demand for the speed and efficiency of the Pedal Foot
Courier Service grows.
Daune is a former student of Stella Maris and Alleyne's High School.
She learnt to ride a bicycle in the United States where she spent some
time with a now deceased adopted mother.
You would think that Daune would prefer to manage her business from the
relative comfort of a small office, monitoring a team of riders charged
with the physically and mentally demanding task of delivering the
packages. Not so. For her, riding is a passion and the fact that she
can make a living pursuing that passion is a bonus.
The system that Daune employs to run her courier service is virtually
identical to that employed by taxi services. You call her business
number, provide the details of the delivery you require and she picks
up and delivers your package. The boundaries of the service are
Turkeyen on the East Coast and Houston on the East Bank and she will
carry any package weighing up to one hundred pounds. It is, she says, a
job that requires mental discipline, physical stamina and cycling
skills that take account of the not infrequent indiscretions of some
road users.
Thin as a rake, bespectacled and attractively articulate, Daune exudes
the persona of a studious university undergraduate. Her familiarity
with the University of Guyana, however, derives from her frequent
deliveries to the campus - twice on the day that this interview was
done.
Understandably, she is tired at the end of a working day. Still, she
pushes herself further, doing an evening job as a waitress at the Dutch
Bottle Café
Daune says that since taking over Pedal Foot Courier Service she has
seen a modest but encouraging growth in her clientele.
At a time when an increasing number of entities are contracting out
support services her clients include international organizations and
non-governmental organizations and small businesses.
She employs one other courier and there are days on which the two share
as many as sixty jobs between them.
Her short term goal is to develop an administrative structure to
support an expanded courier service. She owns four other bicycles and
envisages the recruitment of additional couriers to handle the
additional jobs which she believes can come her way.
Seemingly indifferent to the magnitude of the job that she has
undertaken Daune politely dismisses enquiries about the demands of the
job and talks instead of her passion for cycling. Last weekend she rode
from George-town to Splashmin's Fun Park with a group of local
professional cyclists - just for the heck of it.
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