4L Trophy

Established in 1997 upon the initiative of Jean Jacques Rey - founder of the event.Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Rennes, 4L Trophy is a humanitarian rally that only student can join with Renault 4 cars. Its objective is to drive across the Moroccan desert to provide children with school supplies.

The 16th event of the rally happened from February 14 to February 24, 2013. Its thousands of participants delivered close to 80 ton of school furniture in Morocco after driving 6000 km from departure sites in Bordeaux and Paris.

2017 marked the 20th year anniversary of the 4L trophy counting 2'900 participants from 15 different nationalities.

The objective of the event is schooling 3000 Moroccan children, that is why each team aims at delivering 50 kg of school equipment.

Each year more than 50 tons of school supplies are brought in Morocco. One part is given to the Moroccan League for the Protection of Children in Fez and the other part is distributed in schools along the route.

There is a strong relationship that has been developed between the raid and different association, for instance with the association "Enfant du désert" (children in the desert). This association has been created to encourage education for kids living in this particularly poor region of Morocco. Each year, children and students meet in the camping area and students gives the results of their materials rising to the association and play with the children. There is an official list of what students are supposed to bring. The main elements that are expected are school and sports materials but also medication. According to the raid organization, “Enfant du désert” got €33.665 from the participants and Deloitte and 20000 children will benefit this year from equipments that have been gathered by participants to the raid. Another partnership with “Rire médecin” has been created in 2013 for the first time. Students were asked to give money and to support some actions for this association that aims to support children who are currently in hospital by providing them with games, activities and so on. Participants to the Raid have been asked to wear a clown red nose. This video has then been promoted by different media to advertise this association and raise funds.

Every day, the aim is to win the day's stage using the Road Book, a map of Morocco and a compass. The ranking is based on the teams' ability to drive in the desert and to reach the checkpoints as required. The aim is not to be the fastest team but to be able to reach the meeting point by doing as few kilometers as possible. And desert implies a lot of challenges. First of all, there is, of course, no road in the desert. The main obstacle for participants is called "oued" in Arab which means sand sea in English. These oued require a lot of ability to go through without trouble. Moreover, the car, a 4L Renault is not typically the best car to go through that kind of troubles. Finally, visibility is often weak in the desert because of sand raised by other cars.

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Wikipedia