Riders for Health

Stars see motorcycles saving lives in Kenya

15 August 2007

Riders' program in Kenya received a star visit this June when we were visited by Charley Boorman and Ewan McGregor as part of their Long Way Down adventure.

The intrepid pair visited Riders' programme in the Mbirikani region of Kenya where we work with the development organisation, AID Village Clinics.

The mammoth journey took Charley and Ewan from John O'Groats in Scotland to Cape Town in South Africa and was months in the planning. Their experiences on the ride gave them a first hand understanding of the distances and difficulties involved in riding in Africa. These are the same difficulties faced every day by the health workers with whom Riders works. The life-saving journeys that they make to reach isolated communties are every bit as intrepid.

While visiting the program, Charley and Ewan learned how local health workers run daily checks on their bikes, and are taught to ride them safely. The pair were also shown how the regular maintenance carried out on the vehicles means they never break down, as they traveled out with the health workers on the bikes to help deliver drugs to the rural Maasai communities served by AID Village Clinics.

The stars were shown why effective transportation is crucial to healthcare delivery in Africa, and seeing the work Riders is doing in Kenya clearly had a big effect on both Ewan and Charley. 'The problem in Africa is that people can't necessarily get to the hospitals to get the medicines as they are four, five or six hours walk away,' said Ewan. ' So these riders here are saving lives. We have been amazed at the work that Riders have been doing and we are blown away by it.'

Charley added. 'The whole Riders for Health thing is designed to get health workers out to see everybody. We have been really lucky to have been able to get out on the bikes and visit the villages to help deliver the supplies they greatly need.'

Riders' co-founder and CEO, Andrea Coleman, took the opportunity to thank the Long Way Down team for highlighting the importance of transportation in development, saying 'Charley, Ewan and their amazing team experienced at first hand the distances and isolation that are an everyday fact-of-life for the people living in rural Africa. They saw that they sick can be two days walk from help. They saw how well-maintained motorcycles are now bridging the gulf between healthcare resources and the people who so desperately need them'.

You will be able to see Ewan and Charley as they visit Riders in Kenya later this year when The Long Way Down is shown on BBC 2 in the Autumn.