Le Meridien Angkor’s GM - Gregory Anderson - to Ride Bicycle to Bangkok for Charity

 Le Méridien Angkor in Siem Reap Cambodia, is aiming to increase awareness of The Angkor Hospital for Children’s mission and raise enough funds for the open heart surgery of local 3-year old girl, Di Sreihi.

To bring attention to this cause, Gregory Anderson, Le Méridien Angkor’s General Manager, will embark on a 460km bicycle solo journey through the Cambodian countryside beginning on 12 June 2011 and concluding in Bangkok.

Di Sreihi was born 40 kilometres away from Cambodia’s most important tourist attraction, Angkor Wat. Unfortunately, she has a congenital heart disease called Ventricular Septal Defect, and without surgical intervention she is unlikely to survive.

Her family makes a living through farming, just like 80% of Cambodia’s population, and subsists on less than US$ 3-5 per day and is, thus, not able to afford little Sreihi’s surgery. Fortunately, the Angkor Hospital for Children has secured a Singaporean team of surgeons who are ready to assist their Cambodian counterparts with the procedure. As the volunteer surgical teams are generously donating their time and experience, the cost of performing these life enhancing procedures at AHC has been greatly reduced to only the hospital costs of US$ 3,500.

The Angkor Hospital for Children (AHC) provides free paediatric healthcare to the children affected by both poverty and disease in Siem Reap Province and Northern Cambodia. In a country with minimum - and at times non-existent - health care, AHC also works to strengthen Cambodia’s Health infrastructure through the training of doctors, nurses and other health professionals, as well as rural government health workers and communities.

Anderson will begin the bike ride commencing at the edge of the Angkor Archaeological Park in Siem Reap, Cambodia, riding west and across the border into Thailand to finish in Bangkok. He will be joined by a number of the hotel’s associates for the first 10 kilometres of the journey. Anderson will embark on this excursion with only his bike, a camera, and a GPS unit, with which he will send updates and images of his whereabouts which will be posted on a photoblog.

The inception of this initiative came about after Anderson visited the local hospital, “Hotels can do more than simply bring tourists to discover the local area, so I had a chat with the executive director, Dr. William Housworth, about different ways in which we could help their work within our community; this is one of multiple initiatives,” said Anderson.

Additionally, this project has been respectfully put together in memory of Dr. Eugene Tragus, affectionately known by the local community as Dr. Gene, who had an instrumental role in the development of the hospital and Cambodia’s healthcare infrastructure for the past 15 years.

See recent travel news from: Travel News Asia, Angkor, Siem Reap, Starwood, Le Meridien, Cambodia, Bike, Cycling