Rural Namibia Implements Bicycle Ambulances

Eight Namibian men walk through the desert.  In the radiating heat, four of the men hoist an injured man up on a stretcher.  The remaining four men walk alongside the stretcher waiting for the first four to get tired.  Once the men are near collapsing, they switch off, and continue along the unpaved road.

This is the way Namibians living in rural towns travel to a hospital.  These people have neither access to transportation nor enough income to charter private vehicles; however, recently, things have changed.

Today Namibians are able to reach health care facilities from the most isolated places – and a better chance at survival — because of bicycle ambulances.

The Bicycling Empowerment Network (BEN) Namibia is a nonprofit organization that started out providing bicycles as transportation. It launched a bicycle ambulance project after noticing that health care workers used their bikes’ luggage racks to transport patients to hospitals and clinics.

The Rotary Club of Windhoek, Namibia helped support the project, and now more than 70 bicycle ambulances are serving remote villages.

For more information about the project and the original article from Rotary International please visit: Pedaling health care.