• Bicycles donated to community health workers
• Improved transportation will broaden community outreach and impact
• Program in partnership with Malaria No More and Project Rwanda

ExxonMobil, in partnership with Malaria No More and Project Rwanda, announced the Bikes for Rukara project today in Rwanda.

The program will provide bicycles to community health workers at the Rukara Health Facility, a faith-based operation in partnership with the government of Rwanda, to help reach more families with their life-saving malaria prevention programs. Bikes for Rukara is part of ExxonMobil’s commitment to supporting organizations working to combat malaria.

ExxonMobil’s Medical Director for Global Health Issues, Dr. Steven Phillips, is in Rwanda as part of a United Nations delegation to examine the role of faith-based institutions in helping to control malaria and was at the launch of the bicycle project.

“We are proud to be supporting the Rukara Health Facility, whose efforts have demonstrated the effectiveness of malaria prevention and treatment programs,” said Phillips. “These bicycles will increase the health workers’ abilities to significantly broaden community outreach and impact.”

Rukara is viewed as a model by the Rwandan government for tackling global health issues.

John Bridgeland, Vice Chairman of Malaria No More, Senior Advisor to the UN Special Envoy for Malaria, and Board member of the Center for Interfaith Action, learned of the community health workers’ need for bicycles to visit more homes in their village and surrounding villages to expand their network.

ExxonMobil is spending $10,000 to distribute bicycles to the community health workers supporting the company’s goal to strengthen the ability of Africans to stop the spread of malaria.

ExxonMobil is the largest non-pharmaceutical corporate donor to malaria research and development efforts, and since 2000 has committed $130 million to Africa community outreach programs, including $54 million on programs to fight malaria. The company established its Africa Health Initiative in 2000 in support of the Abuja Declaration on Roll Back Malaria in Africa and its goal to halve malaria deaths by 2010.