Take part in Pedal 4 Poverty and help those in Malawi, Nepal, India, Rwanda, Zambia and here in the UK, who are experiencing health challenges without adequate support.
Please watch our video to find out more about our work.
(Please note, if you would like to raise money offline, then please get in touch with us for a sponsorship form! Our email address is info@emms.org or you can telephone us on 0131 313 3828.)
By taking part in Pedal 4 Poverty, you can help the most vulnerable people escape the cycle of poverty in Malawi, Nepal, India, Rwanda, Zambia and here in the UK.
You might choose one of our suggested distances below, or come up with your own. Cycle inside on a static bike, or take your challenge into the great outdoors! Easily set up your Just Giving page and get fundraising. Raise over £400 and we’ll send you a limited edition Four Nations Cycle Challenge jersey.
Suggested distances:
The Blantyre Blast: 25 miles
The Pokhara Pedal: 50 miles
The Bihar Ride: 75 miles
The Mulanje Mission: 100 miles
Extreme Challenge: 250 miles
Mini Challenge: 4 miles (under 10)
For the competitive among you, log your time and distance on Strava and the fastest over each distance wins an amazing prize! (...We can see you picking a flat route!)
The global healthcare crisis demands bold and urgent action. Thanks to the support of our wonderful fundraisers and supporters, EMMS International has launched an ambitious fundraising drive to recruit, train and find sustainable employment for a further 300 healthcare professionals to help address skills shortages in hospitals and healthcare centres in Malawi, Nepal and India.
The programme will especially target vulnerable women and girls, providing them with a rare opportunity to gain a profession and pursue their own dreams.
Comfort is a nurse midwife technician in Malawi and an alumna of EMMS-sponsored training:
You took me at the time I needed help most in my life. I was hopeless that I wouldn’t make it this far because my parents could not manage to provide the much-needed financial support to complete my studies. You took me and treated me as your own daughter by providing everything a student needed. - Comfort, Healthcare Career Pathways graduate
In Nepal, only 1.7% of families needing palliative care have access to it.
In rural parts of resource-poor countries, where healthcare is inaccessible, cancer diagnoses are often made late, when the cancer is well advanced, or not at all, making each case devastating. The cost of travelling for tests and often futile treatment can add up to a crippling debt for families. Thanks to supporters like you, EMMS International has established itself as an expert in palliative care. It has seen specialist services developed, improved access to essential medicines, established degree-level training programmes and worked with governments to ensure palliative care is a recognised healthcare priority.
We're so grateful for your support. It has allowed us to extend palliative care services in rural Nepal and India to bring quality care closer to home. This eases the burden of care which can all too often force girls out of school.
Over a period of 10 years, EMMS built up palliative care services in Malawi until the country achieved an amazing score equal to that of the UK in the Global Atlas of Palliative Care.
We are very excited to be starting out on the same journey in Zambia and Rwanda, adding them to our expanding programme of palliative care, now in 5 countries.
We haven’t forgotten that the cost-of-living crisis is seriously affecting families in the UK, where dementia is causing isolation and loneliness. At the age of 78, Albert was diagnosed with vascular dementia. He says,
I was isolated at home on my own and this didn’t help with worrying and overthinking. I was worried about my future and how I would cope. I felt that I had nowhere to turn.
Now Albert has the support of a Day Service in the UK, which has helped him to find ways to feel like himself again:
I am now connected within my community and have made lots of new friends. I can stay at home for longer. I’m happy and enjoying life again. My outlook has changed so much since my diagnosis, all because of the Day Service that I attend.
With our partner in the UK, EMMS International is helping to light up lives and bring joy today when memories have faded. But right at this moment, there are people with dementia who are going without decent meals or professional care at home. Some family carers report they are skipping meals to make ends meet. Families are being pushed further into poverty to give their loved ones the care they require.
With your help, we can quickly provide healthy meals and social activities to enhance lives, addressing feelings of loneliness, isolation and fear. By taking part in Pedal 4 Poverty, you can bring people with dementia together for food, fun and laughter.
Thanks to your help, EMMS International was able to offer assistance to support services after the massive destruction caused by the magnitude 6.4 earthquake that struck the Karnali Province in Nepal on the night of the 3rd November. 154 people died and 364 were injured, with 26,557 buildings destroyed or made uninhabitable.
26-year-old Dilli is visually impaired. He is dependent on others to support him with day-to-day tasks, but he struggles to socialise and feels lonely and isolated.Thanks to people like you, we were able to improve the dire situation he found himself in when an earthquake struck his mountain village, destroying his house. Dilli was quick to find out that people with disabilities are frequently the most affected by global health emergencies, unable to navigate the difficulties that they bring. With poor eyesight, he found himself alone, and unable to fend for himself. EMMS made sure Dilli received urgent emergency assistance and our partners were able to quickly provide him with a blanket, warm hat, socks, shawl, a winter bedsheet, and train him how to keep safe by using visual aids.
Our current emergency response is in Malawi. On 23 March 2024, Malawi’s President Lazarus Chakwera declared a State of Disaster, in 23 out of Malawi’s 28 districts affected by recent El Niño conditions. Two million farming households and almost half of the national crop area have been affected.
We urgently need to raise funds to buy and distribute maize flour directly to households where a family member is receiving palliative care. Each bag of maize, a humble yet desperately needed offering, represents sustenance for a family coping with a loved one’s life-limiting illness. Our partners are on stand-by to distribute food to 2,596 families through our network of 21 hospitals and health centres whose palliative care services we developed. Please help us raise the funds to buy the food for our partners to distribute.
EMMS International and its partners are striving to improve the quality, accessibility, sustainability and environmental impact of healthcare facilities and infrastructure.
So far, thanks to supporters like you, we’ve installed solar power in four large rural partner hospitals in Malawi and India. Each hospital had unique challenges to overcome, but together we found the solution to clean energy, reliable power supplies, and reduced energy bills. By broadening our scope and sharing knowledge and expertise with other NGOs and agencies, together we’re making a difference.
I hope that many more hospitals can go green, end black-outs and save running costs! - Dr Arie Glas, Mulanje Mission Hospital, Malawi
We are very grateful to you for your interest in Pedal 4 Poverty. If you would like to talk through your plans for taking part, would like to find out more, or would prefer to raise money offline, then please email info@emms.org or call us on 0131 313 3828. We would love to hear from you!
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