Medical Assistance for the Rohingya Refugees

By Team Bike Maestros

What Happened

Since August 2017, more than 600,000 Rohingya people have been driven from their homes, slaughtered, raped and shot, while searching for safety. This humanitarian crisis is one of the fastest movements of people in recent decades. Under the guide of fighting insurgency or terrorism, the Rohingya have suffered what the UN has called a’ textbook case’ of ethnic cleansing.

Backpackers Medic: Disaster Response Group

The Australian Disaster Response Group (DRG) is a part of Backpacker Medics (BPM), a self-sufficient, highly mobile team that deploys to disaster areas worldwide. So as not to place any further burden on local populations or infrastructure, DRG deploys with its own rations, shelter and water purification capabilities.

The group provides medical assistance to the Rohingya refugee's population through pre-hospital care and logistics support with food and shelter. The next team has been deployed to Bangladesh in end November 2017 and it has a dual-purpose:

• Provide care to the sick and injured Rohingya population in the ever-growing refugee camps, continuing the excellent work of teams 1 & 2
• Train a team of Rohingya volunteers to act as a ‘camp ambulance’ with the aim of connecting patients with health services as they grow in the refugee camps.

Update on Ibrahim (the focus of our earlier fund-raising initiative)

Team 3 of BPM will be delivering a wheelchair to Ibrahim, a young man who is paralysed from the navel down. The next step is to assess the possibility of getting surgery for him to improve his current condition. The funds raised here would partly go to his surgery fees. We would like to thank our supporters for their donations to the earlier initiative.

To find out more about BPM and the work that they do, please visit their webpage: https://backpackermedics.com/

How You Can Help Us

Team Bike Maestros (TBM) is working to raise funds to support the DRG in providing care to the sick and injured Rohingya population in the refugee camps. Any contribution, large or small, would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Who We Are

Beside just leaving empty energy gel packets behind in races, TBM believes in changing lives through sports. The team is made up of professional coaches, triathletes and management consultants (namely Christian Stauffer, Eugene Lee, Aw Yi Zhong and Dinah Lee). Together, they work together to bring about change in the community.