Women's International Motorcycling Association (WIMA) elects Motorcycle Outreach as its nominated charity

 

Motorcycle Outreach (MoR) has been voted the official charity of the Women's International Motorcycle Association (WIMA) at its 2014 annual rally, held this year in Zakopane Poland.  The Presidents of the 15 nations present at the AGM have taken on the task of raising £6000 for MoR's latest project "Build A Bike".

When this sum is raised, a motorcycle will be bought for Cinterandes, an established NGO in Ecuador, headed by the renowned surgeon Dr Edgar Rodas. Cinterandes operates a fully kitted-out operating theatre in a truck which reaches out to remote villages in the Andes and lowlands of rural Ecuador.  The WIMA funded motorcycle will offer Cinterandes the cost-effective possibility of providing much needed pre- and post-operative visits by health workers, which will particularly benefit women and children who are less able to travel to find health care.  The motorcycle will be locally sourced and the money will also provide for maintenance for 3 years (using the Motorcycle Outreach pro-active maintenance approach) .  The fund will also pay for rider training and protective clothing for the health worker rider.



WIMA has a track record of successful charity fund raising, having already raised £35,000 for the WIMA India Street Kids Project. Members were also actively involved in Motorcycle Outreach’s innovative “Precious Cargo” fund-raising project which created the world’s longest signed scroll. The scroll travelled round hospitals in the UK in 2013, collecting signatures and donations totalling over £17,000 for the charity.

Motorcycle Outreach will match fund a second motorcycle for Cinterandes and is actively sourcing other projects around the world that will benefit from one or two bikes sponsored via the “Build a Bike” initiative.

This low cost, high impact approach allows organisations such as clubs and societies, or even small groups of friends, to sponsor a motorcycle and receive feedback directly from the beneficiaries in the field.  The direct engagement provides donors with a high level of transparency on how their money is spent and the positive outcomes it delivers.

For further details on "Build a Bike" , contact Ron on ron@motorcycleoutreach.org

Motorcycle Outreach "Precious Cargo" on display at ICM Congress, Prague

Our new partnership with the UK Midwives reached new heights this week as we attended the International Confederation of Midwives 4 day -Triennial Congress in Prague . In recognition of the success of the "Precious Cargo" project, created jointly with the UK Student Midwives,  we received a personal invitation from Frances Day Stirk , ICM President, to present the initiative to the Congress.

We sent 3 student midwife volunteers to Prague to present how the project was created and to promote the idea to other countries.



In addition to managing our stand , where donations and signatures for the scroll were collected from over 1000 midwives from around the world , our trio of "ambassadors"  presented a 3 minute promotional video of the project during the ICM President's Symposium with student midwives.  500 attended the presentation and the Precious Cargo initiative was incredibly well received.

Click on the link to see our fantastic video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oaLoOMMVrA

The highlight of the event was the unfurling of the scroll in front of the full audience of the Congress at the closing ceremony. The ICM presenter gave a wonderful introduction to the project and the mission of  Motorcycle Outreach. He then invited our volunteers to unfurl the scroll.  Our team was joined by the President of the Royal College of Midwives and the RCM's Director of England.





Several international Midwife Association representatives have expressed interest in running their own Precious Cargo project and these will be followed up in the coming weeks.

Canada is hosting the next Triennial Congress and the country representative was so impressed with the Precious Cargo intiative , we have been invited to attend the event in Toronto in 2017!

Our ambition to send our Precious Cargo "scroll" on a global journey has begun...and what a wonderful way to do it!

Ron Common

 

Renewal of Health for All Motorcycle Fleet thanks to Triumph Tiger 800 Club, AUSAID and Astra

After more than a decade of service the Health for All motorcycle fleet is being renewed thanks to generous support from the Triumph Tiger 800 Club in the UK (3 vehicles), AUSAID (2 vehicles) and Astra International (3 vehicles)

Thanks to this assistance eight of the thirteen original motorcycles from 2002 have been replaced and the new motorcycles are already providing much-needed healthcare transport to Indonesian villages.