6th October, 2011
From Cairo to Cape Town
Cycling the continent for African health
Earlier this year, AMREF Board member Liam Fisher-Jones embarked on an epic journey from Cairo to Cape Town. He wanted to experience an extraordinarily large and diverse continent, raising vital funds for African health, and live healthily in the process.
Liam's 12,000 km journey saw him cycling through 52 degree heat, often on corrugated gravel. Through his journey he saw how vast distances could be between communities in Africa, often travelling for 400 km, or three days before reaching a town.
“I got to see that bicycles were not just important, but essential to communities. A health worker might have to travel distances of 100 km to reach the most remote family.
In Zambia, we came across a social enterprise marketing bicycle-ambulances – strong steel construction, reasonably priced, and no escalating petrol prices to contend with.
I’m a huge supporter of the UK National Health Service – it does brilliant work, yet we somehow take it for granted and always want to squeeze more out of it. If certain African countries had just 5% of the resource we make available to our health service, tens of thousands of lives would be spared. AMREF is doing what it can to bridge that gap.”
Besides coping with the heat and the distance, Liam had to contend with the other challenges life on the road created.
“Getting up in the dark every day, washing with a ration of 2 wet wipes and not having the time to settle into any one community was also difficult... but it was incredibly inspiring to see the smiles, joy and laughter at the side of every road and path”