8-year-old Sandi Carr gets fitted for a new helmet by a member of the Bike Together Winnipeg coalition. She also picked up a new bike that was refurbished by inmates at Headingley Correctional Centre. (Karen Pauls) A program in Winnipeg is helping provincial inmates gain job skills and confidence, while providing free bikes to lower-income children in Winnipeg's inner-city.

Bike Together Winnipeg was formed in 2014, a coalition of community groups committed to promoting safe cycling for children.

"We're hoping they'll become active, to be cycling as families, and we hope they do it safely," says Jacquie Habing, Injury Prevention Program Manager for the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority.

The group has held several events over the past year at Manitoba Housing complexes on Plessis Road, the Immigration Refugee Community Organization of Manitoba, Blake Gardens and the Ralph Brown Community Centre.

Sandi Carr and other children get a bike signalling lesson from a Bike Together Winnipeg volunteer. (Karen Pauls)

Children received a refurbished bike, a lock, and a helmet, as well as education on hand signals and the rules of the road.

"We know that one to two people die each year in Winnipeg due to cycling accidents, another 90 are hospitalized. The reason we see deaths is because they're not wearing helmets. Helmets reduce the chances of a brain injury by 88%," Habing says.

Sandi Carr, 8, picked up a cute pink bicycle.

"I'm very, very happy," she said after successfully navigating the driving course.

"I felt like I was flying."

The program doesn't just benefit children, though.

The bikes come from the Brady Landfill, where their original owners dumped them.

Nicole Brezden, traffic director for the City of Winnipeg, says hundreds of bikes are dumped at the Brady Landfill every year. (Karen Pauls)

"We do take in quite a bit of bikes, especially in the spring and fall cleanups," says Nicole Brezden, a landfill traffic director for the City of Winnipeg.

"They get rebuilt and used again by inner-city children. … We will accept any bicycle because they can take the parts from that bicycle and use it to complete a bike for a child."

In 2014 alone, the city diverted 23 tonnes of bicycles that would otherwise be rusting in the landfill.

Those bikes are then taken to the Headingley Correctional Centre, where inmates in the addictions rehabilitation unit fix them in the centre's bike shop.

CBC News couldn't get inside for security reasons, but officials said in the last two years, the inmates have refurbished nearly 1,200 bikes.

Assistant Superintendent Andrew Bestland says bikes are taken from the Brady Landfill to the Headingley Correctional Centre, where inmates in the addictions rehabilitation unit refurbish them. (Karen Pauls)

"A lot of men, when they come to correctional centre as inmates, they've lost contact, or they've lost that connection to the community and it gives them a sense of wanting to give back and be connected. So very many of our inmates who work in the bike shop are very proud to know their work contributes to the community but also helps kids. That gives them a good feeling," says assistant superintendent Andrew Bestland.

It's a win-win situation, he adds.

"They learn a lot of job skills. In addition to how to use the tools in a bike shop, they learn punctuality, they learn shop organization, cleanliness, how to take direction, how to work cooperatively, so there's lots of applicable skills they can take back when they're reintegrated into society."