HRH The Princess Royal who is a patron of Riders for Health, officially opened the firm's new offices and showed their ambitious future goals to aid thousands of African communities over the next four years.

In her address to spectators, the Princess spoke of the link between poor transportation and the lack of development in Africa. Every year, billions of dollars are invested to developing new drugs, vaccines and other medications to save lives, however without effectiveness on delivering health care to rural areas, the money is wasted and people still continue to suffer.

Riders for Health (Riders) commenced their work in 1989 when Northamptonshire couple, Barry and Andrea Coleman, founded the company.

The company re-located to new offices at Spring Hill Office Park, near Pitsford, after its success. The new area for the UK resource centre will let the organisation support the lifesaving work of people in Africa.

Ngwarati Mashonga, Riders’ boss states, “We have come a long way in the last 20 years, but sadly there are still too many communities in Africa for whom access to basic health care remains a distant dream. During the last two weeks our African and UK teams have come together and set ourselves some ambitious goals for the next four years – including expanding our work into another three countries by 2013. It is a real honour and privilege to have our patron, HRH The Princess Royal, with us today to help mark this next exciting phase in Riders’ work.”