30 September 2021
Ride for their Lives – an update:
Earlier this month the #RideForTheirLives team undertook the huge journey from Glasgow to London to deliver the blue bag containing the signed #HealthyClimatePrescription letter.
This letter collected signatures from over 450 organisations representing over 45million health workers. We are thrilled, and grateful, to be included in this representation. The medical community has made its voice heard – the climate crisis is a health crisis!
The call to support:
The Ride for their Lives(link is external) event, grounded around a tough cycle journey from Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London to the Royal Hospital for Children in Glasgow – where COP26 is taking place – is a calling on us all to help to cycle a million kilometres for the climate and inspire others to act.
The goal is to communicate the seriousness of air pollution(link is external) to the health community and the public. Polluted air causes an estimated 7 million deaths annually(link is external), and shares the same root causes as the climate crisis.
The organisers aim is to reach a million kilometers – The bigger the action the better the result.
If you work for a healthcare provider you can help! Organize events within your institution, or with your friends and family, to help raise awareness of air pollution and the need to protect the planet for our patients.
Join the ride virtually by cycling 100 km between the 1 and 31 October – wherever you are in the world – in the run-up to COP26.
From the organisers:
We are calling on adult and child healthcare providers (and the public) around the world to join the ride virtually and log their miles on Strava. This is a chance for the global healthcare community to unite and send a single powerful message to those in power. We hope as many of your members as possible will take part.
About the event:
At 9 am in the UK on Sunday 24 October, 30 passionate paediatric healthcare providers will leave Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London on bicycles. Their destination will be over 800km away – the Royal Hospital for Children in Glasgow, where COP26 is taking place.
Their goal is to communicate the seriousness of air pollution(link is external) to the health community and the public. Polluted air causes an estimated 7 million deaths annually(link is external), and shares the same root causes as the climate crisis.
The journey from London to Glasgow will be long and arduous. But the journey will act as an inspiration for the journey our species now has to take. Those who protect our children’s health now are riding to offer hope for our children’s future. They are showing us it can be done.
The core cyclists are made up of staff from six UK children’s hospitals, including Great Ormond Street Hospital. They will arrive in Glasgow as COP26 starts, where they will announce the numbers of kms completed by Ride for their Lives participants around the world, and hand over a suite of documents from the global health community that outline the need for urgent action on air pollution and the wider climate crisis.
This will include the Healthy Climate Prescription letter. The ride and the letter go hand in hand – we are encouraging every healthcare provider who joins the virtual ride to add their name to this letter.
They are calling on adult and child healthcare providers (and the public) around the world to join the ride virtually and log their miles on Strava. This is a chance for the global healthcare community to unite and send a single powerful message to those in power. We hope as many of your members as possible will take part.
Get involved:
We need to act now to inspire others to act. The bigger the action the better the result. Our aim is to reach a million kilometers. If you work for a healthcare provider you can help, and so can your friends and family.
Join the ride virtually by cycling 100 km between the 1 and 31 October – wherever you are in the world – in the run-up to COP26.
Crucially the organisers want stories/videos from your network. We want to build a hub of action – healthcare providers sharing knowledge, stories and inspiration from around the world with each other.
- Sign up here Ride for their Lives(link is external). You will be asked to set up a Strava profile (the free version is entirely adequate) if you do not already have one. Strava can be used with a smartphone or by manually entering miles on a desktop. We are encouraging riders to commit to riding 100 kilometres between 1 and 31 of October, but of course, feel free to do as many as you can.
- Sign the Healthy Climate Prescription letter(link is external).
