by Alice Mascarenhas
Twenty-six members of the MarocAtlas Gibraltar 4×4 Club in 26 vehicles will be carrying out the annual Solidarity Raid into Morocco. Setting out today the team had a trial run this week to try out their vehicles in a test run on the terrain at Eastern Beach. This year the raid will see
them travelling in the Sahara desert.
The club started back in 1994 when Club President Alfred Balban and George Acolina made a trip to Morocco with a 4×4 Club from Malaga.
Alfred explained how both men had been touched by the country and its people and decided to return the following year. However, by then the club had been dismantled and they set about creating a local club.
Since then the club has carried out solidarity raids in Morocco every year filling up their vehicles with all kinds of goods to donate. The trips take the group through the most remote and harsh parts of Morocco travelling over 5000kms in 16 days on their 4×4 vehicles. Participants load their 4x4s with everything they can: clothes, toys and school items, utensils, and other supplies many kindly donated by local companies.
The club holds monthly meetings and have registered as a charity. The group is affiliated to the Lions FC allowing them a fixed address.
It now boasts 30 members.
“They are involved in different types off-roading. Our trips range from simple tracks and sightseeing to the most extreme of 4×4 trials, competitions and off-road race circuits and our annual Solidarity Raid into Morocco,” explained Alfred Balban.
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