TeenHelp - Médecins Sans Frontières

Article featured in Avatar - Volume 3, Issue 8 (February 2010).

Médecins Sans Frontières
By Jessie (Asylum)

Doctors Without Borders, known internationally as Médecins Sans Frontières, or MSF, is a non-governmental medical humanitarian organization. MSF was created in 1971 by a group of French doctors with the belief that all people have a right to medical care and that this right supersedes race, religion or political affiliation.

"MSF sets out to alleviate human suffering, to protect life and health and to restore and ensure respect for the human beings and their fundamental human rights."

On the basis of need alone, MSF independently provides emergency aid to people in danger in dozens of countries around the world. Recipients of their services may be in man-made or natural disaster areas, living in areas affected by epidemics, or they may be victims of armed conflict. In countries where health care services are insufficient or non-existent, MSF works in hospitals, aids in vaccination programs, and assists with water sanitation efforts. In poor rural areas, volunteers work in clinics training local health care workers.

MSF also seeks to raise awareness. Human suffering has become so common on our television screens that an event often has to be of catastrophic proportions in order to gain media attention. Where cameramen and news anchors are not, MSF travels. Recently, in January 2010 alone, MSF teams have reported from Gaza, Republic of Congo, Burundi, Haiti and Somalia.

"MSF rejects the idea that poor countries deserve third-rate medical care and strives to provide high-quality care to patients and to improve the organization's practices."

MSF volunteers are doctors, nurses, surgeons, mental health professionals, midwives, laboratory technicians and other paramedical workers. Many non-medical volunteers also play a vital role in the organization’s efforts, from administrators and bookkeepers to those in technical fields such as mechanics, construction and sanitation. Because of the demanding and often dangerous nature of their work, MSF cannot open positions to students. If volunteering sounds like something you would enjoy, though, keep them in mind for the future!

For more information on the fantastic work that Médecins Sans Frontières is doing today, and to find out how to can help, please visit:

International: www.msf.org
Canada: www.msf.ca
United Kingdom: www.uk.msf.org
United States: www.doctorswithoutborders.org