Riders for Health has been working in Zimbabwe with the Ministry of Health since 1998. Before Riders, outreach workers spent an average of only 2 days a week in the community, despite being responsible for reaching up to 100 villages. Mobilized by Riders, the outreach workers can spend four days a week doing their work. Zimbabwe is also one of the areas where Riders operates trekking vehicles, which ensure that women are referred to hospitals safely and quickly when complications occur.
Recently, we have been focused on recovering from Zimbabwe's economic crisis, re-scaling operations and re-mobilizing health workers throughout the country.
"Without a motorcycle, it is difficult to keep your commitments. With a motorcycle, you solve more problems at different locations at any particular time." - Denford Maruta, Health Technician at Makumbe Hospital
Riders is grateful for your support of this program. Together, we can change lives.
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Riders began working in Zambia, where 14% of children do not make it to see their 5th birthday, in 2009. At that time we put 5 trained couriers on the road in the Chadiza district to collect patient samples and deliver results on a regular,
timetabled basis. This is particularly important with reducing mother-to-child transmission of HIV. Having seen great success in that pilot program, we expanded it in 2010 and are now in the midst of bringing it to the Southern Province. We are also in the midst of a transportation management program involving trekking vehicles which are used for delivering vaccines for National Immunization Days. Millions of young children die of diseases that could have been prevented by routine vaccination. With your help, we can make sure health workers have the reliable transportation needed to reach communities for these critical immunization clinics.
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Our program in Kenya continues to grow. Recently Riders worked with community-based organizations (CBO) to train their health care workers how to ride their motorbikes safely and with confidence. In this last training session there were 20 people that participated. Riders has gotten some great feedback from trainees on their experience at the newly registered training school in Kenya.
Prior to the training, 68% of the 20 attendees had never ridden a motorcycle and three had never even ridden a bicycle. When they were asked what their worries were going into the training, the main concerns noted were accidents and others on the roads who haven’t received proper training.
After the training, the trainees left feeling “empowered”, “safe” and “confident”. Every attendee said they were either satisfied or very satisfied in terms of their experience, the professionalism of the school and the training they received. On a scale of one to five, 90% gave a rating of five out of five and the remaining gave four out of five.
Here are some of the things trainees had to say.
Benard Ochieng' Sigunga, Clinical Community Health Assistant with KEMRI- FACES, said, “The instructors seem to have a good academic and professional background, they are very good at theory and fantastic at technical demonstrations.”
Jacknne O. Hamisi, a Social Worker with KEMRI- FACES, said, “I am very confident, skilled and in control of the motorbike.”
Every donation we receive brings us an important step closer to our vision of a world in which people do not suffer or die simply because the health care they need does not reach them.
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