MS Awareness Soars in the Americas

Fly for MS is a project run by American pilots Tomas Vykruta and Fouad Ahmed who want to raise awareness of Multiple Sclerosis whilst sharing their passion for flying. They are flying their small plane to visit MS organisations, meet people affected by MS and raise funds for MS. They are even offering people with MS rides in the plane!

The sheer scale of this unusual campaign has helped to get media attention and bring much needed awareness to MS organisations around South and Central America.

This is the second journey under the ‘Fly for MS’ banner, which first traversed Europe in 2010. The team is will fly over 15000 miles in three months. In December they visited Colombia, Panama, Paraguay and Brazil.

The plane landed in Uruguay on January 2nd and the Uruguayan Air Force supported an event with EMUR which was covered by national and international TV, radio and newspapers.

Magdalena Gari from EMUR said: “We were really moved by these two young professionals whose generosity brought them to foreign lands to advocate for an unknown neurological disease. They had not met a single person with MS until 2010 when they embarked on the first ‘Fly for MS’ journey in Europe.”

Tomas and Fouad then flew to Argentina, where they held an event with EMA and ALCEM in Buenos Aires.

They crossed the Cordillera de Los Andes and landed in Santiago de Chile, arriving in Peru on January 19. They will be visiting our members in Guatemala and Mexico, before finally heading back to New York. You can see the full schedule on the Fly for MS website.

So far, more than 200 people with have MS have been able to fly in the Fly for MS plane.

The view from the cockpit crossing the Andes

Fly for MS with ALEM in Columbia

ABEM in Brazil pose with Fly for MS

Fly for MS in Peru

EMUR with the Fly for MS team in Uruguay

Fly for MS in Paraguay