Gambia's 'Riders For Health' Expands

The innovative Riders for Health group, a nonprofit that provides transportation for healthcare workers in the African country of Gambia, has won a Third Sector Social Enterprise Award, according to an article by Bruce Lowry on the Skoll Foundation Web site.

Riders for Health is a "health delivery initiative in Gambia created in partnership with the Skoll Foundation, Gambian Department of State for Health and GT Bank," Lowry writes. The program is funded in large part by a "Clinton Global Initiative commitment in 2007, which included a $3.5 million loan guarantee from the Skoll foundation."

In many African nations, healthcare is more or less unavailable for the poor, especially for the rural poor. In contrast, the Gambia government's Department of State for Health set up small clinics in rural areas all over the country. These clinics serve as bases for Riders, who travel a circuit in the countryside, delivering healthcare and transporting patients to the clinics if they need more help. The newly expanded Riders program now reaches as many as 1.7 million Gambians, Lowry writes.

Initially, Riders for Health grew out of motorcycle racing, according to the Riders Web site, which says the group is working in three countries: Gambia, Zimbabwe and Nigeria. "All programs are managed by wholly-African, wholly-professional teams, and not by volunteers or expatriates," the site states. "This means that Riders is able to build a lasting base of local knowledge and a culture of maintenance in the communities with which it works."

Riders has a total of 230 employees in all of Africa, "running more than 1,274 vehicles and keeping health and community workers from a variety of organizations ‘on the road’ – from ministries of health to small community groups," the site states.

Photo courtesy of GoGo Visual, via Flickr