What Riders for Health does
Millions of pounds of aid are committed every year to fight killer diseases in Africa. Development organisations spend tens of thousands of pounds on new health care vehicles.
However, without Riders for Health, and our reliable transport system, this would all be wasted because the vehicles would break down and vital health care would not reach those who so desperately need it.
The majority of the population in Sub-Saharan Africa live in isolated rural areas where the only roads are dirt tracks. With no servicing even the hardiest of vehicles will last for maybe a year, but then it will break unpredictably, expensively and, eventually, fatally.
Riders, therefore, manages and maintains vehicles used in the delivery of health care and other vital services to rural communities. With proper maintenance, motorcycles, ambulances and outreach trekking vehicles can last for at least five years, covering a distance of 150,000 miles, and reaching 10.5 million people. 
To find out more about what Riders for Health does, click here to download our brochure.
Preventative Maintenance
All of Riders for Health’s programmes are based on preventative maintenance since it is cheaper to keep a vehicle running efficiently than to have to repair it when it breaks down. Crucially, it also means that the link in health care is never broken because a health care worker will never be left without transport to reach his or her communities.
Monthly servicing and daily checks to the vehicle ensure that it always runs to a high level and a supply chain is in place so that the correct replacements parts are always available and can be delivered at the right time. Riders’ teams work on an ‘outreach basis’, travelling out to service the vehicles in the locations in which they run. This means that health workers don’t waste valuable time and resources bringing their vehicles into a garage for servicing, and can spend more time in their communities.
‘There are no breakdowns if you maintain the vehicles on a regular basis. You fix the problems early.’ Riders for Health technician, Zimbabwe.
Training
Riders trains health care workers, (many of whom have never ridden a bicycle before), in safe riding and driving skills, providing them with protective clothing. They also learn how to drive sympathetically to the harsh conditions so that the vehicle continues to run for its intended life span. We only employ African nationals - from our technicians and fleet managers to programme directors - creating local employment. The skills developed with us remain in the community for future generations.
To find out more about our training in Africa, click here.
Cost per kilometre
The exact cost of running a vehicle within Riders’ system is worked out using a cost-per-kilometre calculator, which takes into account all factors from replacement parts and fuel, to maintenance and logistics costs. 
This means that there are no unexpected costs across a vehicles life span so our partners can always budget for a transport system making our programmes self-sustaining in the long term.
The benefits
Thanks to Riders system of preventive maintenance, over 1300 vehicles of all kinds – motorcycles, trucks, cars and ambulances – are now running perfectly across seven different counties in Africa, meeting the health care needs of over 10 million people.
'We have had vehicles that just stop working after one year. One year and that’s it. Now they keep working for three years or more.' Director of Planning, Department of State for Health, the Gambia.
For more information about the difference Riders’ programmes are making in Africa, click here. For more details about our transport models, click here.