Riders for Health and Yamaha combine to help Africa

Riders for Health, which is the official charity of MotoGP, and Yamaha have joined forces to organise a raid, named ‘Ride for Life’. The raid will help to support health workers in Africa by giving them a means of tough and reliable transport to perform their invaluable work and reach isolated communities in Africa.

A group of Dakar veterans, journalists and five selected participants from the general public will take a fleet of Super Ténéré bikes and supporting vehicles from Paris to Lisbon to Morocco. At the end of the raid, Yamaha and its network of partners will donate to Riders for Health five Super Ténérés and a supporting package of essential replacement parts which will ensure three years of perfect operation in the severe African circumstances.

Riders for Health has chosen to operate these five Super Ténérés in the Eastern province of Zambia. These motorcycles will help to improve the delivery of health care in rural communities by ensuring the efficient detection and diagnosis of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and other diseases. To date Riders for Health have mobilised five couriers who will help to deliver blood samples by motorcycle. In 2010, Riders will be mobilising another five professional sample couriers as well as 15 health workers who will provide primary health care to local population.

The Ride for Life will be started under the Eiffel tower by the famous French adventure rider David Frétigné, who will join a team of European motorcycle journalists, riding the Super Ténéré for the very first time, to Toulouse. Franco Picco will then take over and take another group of journalists to Madrid, where Stephane Peterhansel will join a third press group for their ride to Lisbon. From there Helder Rodriguez - fourth in the 2010 Dakar Rally - will lead the group from the Portuguese capital down to the North African coast to the final destination of Marrakech. It is here that on May 17th Yamaha will donate these five Super Ténéré bikes to the humanitarian organization Riders for Health.

”We are delighted that Yamaha Europe are helping to support our work in Africa with this event,” said Andrea Coleman, CEO Riders for Health. “This is another great example of the motorcycle community coming together to help some of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people by ensuring they can receive the basic health care the developed world takes for granted. These motorcycles will make a big difference to our work in Zambia, and we are very grateful to everyone that has helped to make this possible.”