Land Rover is celebrating the 70th anniversary of their partnership with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), a partnership that began with a Series I in 1954. It’s one of the world’s longest-lasting charitable partnerships, reaching over 2 million people in 50 countries. To commemorate the anniversary, they also donated a Defender 130 Outbound to the Italian Red Cross, to serve in the ancestral home of the organization.
The first Land Rover donated to the Red Cross/Red Crescent was a Series I 107” sent to Dubai. In the 1950s, the city was far from the international hub of glitz and glamor that it is today – instead, it was part of the British protectorate of the Trucial States, and wouldn’t be an independent nation until 1972. The Land Rover was modified as a mobile dispensary, and carried a stretcher in its extended cargo area. The vehicle travelled 17,000 miles in nine months, dispensing medicine and care to over 5,000 patients in Dubai and the surrounding deserts.
These mobile dispensaries were sent all over the world, including several in Africa. Land Rovers would be modified into ambulances, used for food distribution, and would carry health and hygiene equipment into the rubble and ruin of disasters. Almost every model of Land Rover has been used by the Red Cross and Red Crescent at some point, though the star has always been the Series and Defender vehicles. Discovery has also played a heavy role, though, including in 2018 when a custom-built vehicle joined the Austrian team as a drone platform for search-and-rescue operations.
As the classic Defender started to make way for the new Defender, Land Rover has remained steadfast in the partnership. In 2019, the new Defender made its first steps with the IFRC in the same place its predecessor did – working with the branch in Dubai to do desert testing. When the COVID-19 pandemic sidelined the new vehicle’s British press launch, the press fleet was donated to the British Red Cross to bring food and medicine to vulnerable people across the UK – the first public task undertaken by the new vehicle before it went on sale.
To celebrate the 70th anniversary of the partnership, Land Rover donated a Defender 130 Outbound to the Italian Red Cross. The Red Cross originated in Italy. In 1859, Swiss activist Henry Dunant was shocked by the lack of medical care given to soldiers wounded in the Battle of Solferino during the Second Italian War of Independence. This set in motion the processes that led to his founding the organization.
The Defender 130 has a roof-mounted satellite dish that can work to rebuild cellular networks in areas impacted by outages, such as floods and mudslides. The Italian Red Cross already uses this technology in a static environment, but this is the first time they’re using a mobile platform.
Land Rover and IFRC continue to go from strength to strength with the partnership, with Land Rover providing a constant supply of vehicles worldwide and the IFRC putting them to maximum use. The partnership shows no signs of slowing after seven decades of helping.
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