The Ride for World Health is a national, 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization which advocates for improvements in the quality and accessibility of national and global healthcare. Each year, the Ride for World Health culminates its fundraising efforts in a 3,700 mile cross-country bike ride from San Diego, CA to Washington, D.C., stopping at 50+ locations along the way and educate community members about the healthcare issues our world is facing today, including topics like HIV education, poverty and healthcare, and malaria prevention. Since the first cross-country trip in 2006, R4WH has raised nearly $500,000 for various global health charities. Last year's ride was a great success with $50,000 donated to World Bicycle Relief and HEAL Africa. The beneficiaries for Ride for World Health 2012 are Louie's Kid's, focused on childhood obesity, MANA, an organization that helps treat severely malnourished children in developing countries, and SOIL, a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting soil resources, empowering communities and transforming wastes into resources in Haiti.
The team this year will ride from San Diego, CA to Washington, D.C. in just under eight weeks, and deliver lectures and seminars to a wide variety of audiences from community centers and healthcare offices to preschools and teen groups. It's an amazing opportunity for me to integrate my love of cycling with the things I've learned about the "One Medicine" concept in school, as well as get great experience teaching and spend two months making a small difference in the world. The lecture series is organized by the riders, so each team member gets the chance to teach topics of his or her expertise or interest. The majority of the team is in the human health field--the ride is organized by Ohio State medical students--so my input to the topic of world health from the veterinary side is fairly unique. Hopefully we'll be able to tailor part of the lecture series to zoonotic disease, and the interactions between environmental change, agriculture, and these diseases, which is my particular area of interest in veterinary medicine.
More information about the ride, our beneficiaries, and our route can be found on the website, here:
http://rideforworldhealth.org/
Or, on the facebook page for the ride, here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ride-for-World-Health/11862555943
My fundraising goal is $2700, and I'm hoping to hit the $1000 mark by February 1, 2012. I truly appreciate any and all contributions, no matter how small! To donate, follow the link below and click on the "donate to this rider" button:
http://rideforworldhealth.org/~r4wh/?q=theriders/bio/114
I'll be posting updates on my training and fundraising here and on my facebook event page, here:
http://www.facebook.com/events/194356770653699/
