Doctors Without Borders/Medecins sans Frontieres

[kingrat]

Please repost this.

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So the next organization I'd like to highlight that is doing work in Darfur is Doctors Without Borders. While other groups in the region are providing a variety of services to the refugees in Darfur, this organization focuses on one thing: providing medical services. Doctors Without Borders is known internationally as Medecins Sans Frontieres. References below to MSF are actually to the same organization. Here are a few highlights from their web site (bold added by gkr):

• From January to May 2005, MSF staff treated more than 500 people for violence-related injuries and 278 women for rape. Rape and sexual violence remain pervasive, inflicted on women and girls who must venture beyond the borders of camps to find firewood, water and food for their families.
• Faced with high rates of diarrhea, respiratory infections, and malaria; appalling water and sanitation conditions in many areas; and outbreaks of meningitis and hepatitis, MSF has worked to provide medical care, nutritional help and safe water.
• Out of a 343 M€ budget for aid, 50.4 M€ was spent in Sudan, making it the largest area of expenditures for MSF.
• About 200,000 people from Darfur are refugees across the border in Chad. But the government of Sudan has turned the militias that terrorized Darfur into rebels in Chad, and now Chadians are crossing the border to Sudan as refugees.

  The MSF team quickly organized a measles-vaccination campaign, with vaccines provided by the Ministry of Health, and distributed basic survival items. … "In spite of everything, we were able to vaccinate 700 children and distribute blankets, jerry cans and buckets, clothing, mats, and other basic items within two days," says Neuman. A drinking water distribution system was put in place during the same period.

• The international medical humanitarian aid organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is launching a meningitis vaccination campaign in eastern Chad, following a recent outbreak among refugees from Sudan's Darfur region. The campaign is aimed at protecting thousands of people in the area from the highly infectious disease, which is particularly threatening in the overcrowded camps.

  … Over a period of two weeks, MSF plans to vaccinate about 70,000 Sudanese refugees and local residents in and around the Bredjing and Farchana camps, and in the border town of Adré.

That's just a sample. Here's the kind of opposition Doctors Without Borders faces:

• Although there are many humanitarian organizations in El Geneina, few are prepared to leave the city. The paralysis afflicting aid agencies is visible in this area." The tensions on the nearby border, attacks against humanitarian convoys and the movements of armed groups in this region all contribute to the widespread failure to act.
• Two senior MSF international staff were arrested by Sudanese authorities in May 2005. Both were charged with "publishing false information, undermining Sudanese society and spying." The charges came in response to a critical MSF report on widespread sexual violence in Darfur that was published in March 2005. Faced with hundreds of women and girls seeking medical care following rape and sexual violence, MSF released the report to raise awareness about the violence and calling for measures to be taken to stop it. The arrests sparked strong protest from many international humanitarian actors who demanded that the baseless charges be dropped. On 20 June 2005, the government announced that it had dropped the charges against the two aid workers and they were released.

In short, no one is making it easy on them.

So here's how to donate.

Online via credit card

Go here: http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/donate/index.cfm

By mail

Print this form out and send a check along with the fill out form to:

Doctors Without Borders USA, P.O. Box 5030, Hagerstown, MD 21741-5030

By phone

Call 1-888-392-0392 24 hours a day 7 days a week.

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So here's the incentive I will personally give to donating or helping. There are 121 people on my friends list. For every one of them that donates money to Doctors Without Borders in the next month, I'll match their donation up to $100. That could be up to $24,200 donated combined. Show me a copy of your receipt to get me to match.

Here's the second incentive: For everyone on my friends list who reposts this, I'll donate an additional $10 to Doctors without Borders. At zero cost to you. Sorry, it's not a viral payment like the Bill Gates email tracking hoax. I can't afford to donate $10 for everyone who posts a version of this. And only $10 per person, not per posting. You, however can feel free to create your own incentives to get people to re-post. Send me a link to your posting if it's not on Live Journal. (Re-posting does not need to preserve formatting....)

Comments

[evillinn.livejournal.com]

heh. Before reading all the way to the bottom of your post I was thinking that this is an organization I'd like to donate to.

Sooo...I'll gladly donate directly myself, but wanted to ask, partly for others reading your LJ, are you willing to just let us give you money to include in one big donation under your own name? it might encourage people to donate if they don't have to do it themselves. Just a thought.

[kingrat]

Gladly. I'm not starting a drive to give me money to give to them though. Don't want the headaches of people accusing me of a scam or anything like that. So that offer is only for people who ask.

[euterpe35.livejournal.com]

done (http://euterpe35.livejournal.com/535032.html)

[kingrat]

Thank you! Here's hoping that other people do so as well.

[bork.livejournal.com]

I have donated to them in the past - they're good folk. I probably will again later this month; thanks for the post about them! (I will let you know when I do donate.)

Also, see if work will match your donations. That'll get them even more money!

[evillinn.livejournal.com]

duuuude. That'd kick some major ass, wouldn't it? Big chunky donation from gkr to match our donations, matched yet again by them? Quadruple donation. awesome.

[kingrat]

They'll match what I personally give, and only up to $5,000. Still, if I match $5,000 (and thus Expedia matches another $5,000), I'll be fucking ecstatic.

[evillinn.livejournal.com]

That sounds like a very reasonable goal to me.

it should happen.

I can't imagine I'll be able to donate more than $100. I'll do that tomorrow, when i get paid. And I will re-post this, but I'll hold off a few days so that its not hitting everyone's LJ 8 times in one day.

[kingrat]

They will.

[turtlegrrl13.livejournal.com]

This is a great organization and I will repost this. I will try to scrape some money to donate, but it's always hard when one is not working. After I graduate and become licensed, I plan on being active in Acupuncturists without borders. They went to help the Katrina victims and apparently were told that they couldn't help anylonger. There is supposed to be a lecture on this soon, so hopefully I can find out more information.

[grrlanimal.livejournal.com]

http://www.yarnharlot.ca/blog/tsffaq.html

:)