“We are all exhausted. Most of us started the day tired after a long week and I wasn’t the only one planning a low-key weekend. Worn out though we are, there are few complaints. This is what we are here for after all. And we would do it all again tomorrow if we had to.”
—It’s your birthday, you plan to relax, then the call comes in - there are many people wounded by gun shots down the river. Read how MSF nurse Emma and her team in South Sudan leap into action.
Médecins sans Frontières book reveals aid agencies' ugly compromises | Global development | The Guardian
guardian.co.ukIn 2009, MSF was subjected to a 5% tax on the salary of all MSF employees by the al-Qaida linked al-Shabaab militia, not to mention “registration” costs of $10,000 (£6,300) per project, a $20,000 tax every six months and was told to dismiss all female employees.
International relief and aid agencies face all kinds of challenges, and the aid workers on the ground are confronted by difficult and dangerous conditions. The fact that the agencies must compromise with powerful forces at times should not come as a surprise, but it’s disheartening, nonetheless.
Hats off to Medecins sans Frontieres for being open about the dilemmas and for allowing debate about the responses.
MSF/Doctors Without Borders do good work. We make a monthly contribution to them.
Sign the STARVED FOR ATTENTION petiton!
starvedforattention.orgFrom the MSF “Starved for Attention” website:
Right now, the humanitarian food aid system provides nutritionally inadequate foods to malnourished children under two years of age. This situation must stop.
Sign the petition to support Doctors Without Borders/ Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)’s efforts to demand that governments supplying humanitarian food aid ensure that the food meets nutritional standards for infants and young children. On World Food Day in 2011, MSF will present the petition to the top food aid donor countries.
Charities Rush to Help Japan, With Little Direction - NYTimes.com
nytimes.comFrom this article: “… Wealthy Japan is not impoverished Haiti. And many groups are raising money without really knowing how it will be spent — or even if it will be needed.”
Also this: “Few charitable organizations are actually at work in Japan yet.”
No doubt. The Japanese tragedy should tug at every human heart. I strongly applaud everyone who wants to help. I do, too. The question is how to do that effectively. Many of the agencies I would normally give to are standing by to see if their help is wanted or needed. Some are accepting donations ear-marked for Japan; others say they will not do that and any expenditures they make while assessing the situation will come from their general funds.
Doctors Without Borders and Oxfam are among the agencies that have been especially upfront and honest with donors about the situation, and I commend them highly as agencies deserving of contributions that are not earmarked but go into general programming funds.
The advice in this article from Robert Ottenhoff, president and chief executive of GuideStar, seems appropriate for now, at least: “People who really want to support charitable organizations and good works, Mr. Ottenhoff said, should base it on a desire to support something they already understand and believe in.”
“The head of an international medical charity has called on aid agencies to stop presenting a misleading picture of the famine in Somalia and admit that helping the worst-affected people is almost impossible. The international president of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), Dr Unni Karunakara, returned from Somalia last week and said that, even though there was chronic malnutrition and drought across east Africa, hardly any agencies were able to work inside war-torn Somalia, where the picture was 'profoundly distressing'. He condemned other organisations and the media for 'glossing over' the reality in order to convince people that simply giving money for food was the answer.”
—This is terrible news, but I respect Medecins Sans Frontieres/Doctors Without Borders for saying this.
