posted July 23, 2006 12:52 PM              

Each year, MSF doctors, nurses, logisticians, water-and-sanitation experts, administrators, and other medical and non-medical professionals depart on more than 3,800 field assignments. They work alongside more than 22,500 locally hired staff to provide medical care.

In emergencies and their aftermath, MSF provides health care, rehabilitates and runs hospitals and clinics, performs surgery, battles epidemics, carries out vaccination campaigns, operates feeding centers for malnourished children, and offers mental health care. When needed, MSF also constructs wells and dispenses clean drinking water, and provides shelter materials like blankets and plastic sheeting.

Through longer-term programs, MSF treats patients with infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, sleeping sickness, and HIV/AIDS, and provides medical and psychological care to marginalized groups such as street children.

MSF was founded in 1971 as a nongovernmental organization to both provide emergency medical assistance and bear witness publicly to the plight of the people it assists. A private nonprofit association, MSF is an international network with sections in 19 countries.

Responding to Emergencies

MSF is often one of the first humanitarian organizations to arrive at the scene of an emergency. Its large-scale logistical capacity ensures that MSF emergency teams hit the ground with the specialized medical kits and equipment they need to start saving lives immediately.

Custom-designed by MSF for specific field situations, geographic conditions, and climates, a kit may contain a complete operating room, for example, or all of the supplies needed to treat hundreds of cholera patients. MSF kits and medical protocols have been replicated by relief organizations worldwide.

MSF has proven expertise in the field of epidemiology and is often called on to monitor, diagnose, and control outbreaks of diseases, such as cholera, meningitis, and measles.

Independent Humanitarian Action

MSF's decision to intervene in any country or crisis is based solely on an independent assessment of people's needs — not on political, economic, or religious interests. MSF does not take sides or intervene according to the demands of governments or warring parties.

MSF volunteers frequently work in the most remote or dangerous parts of the world. When crises unfold, they make themselves and their skills available on short notice, usually dedicating six to twelve months to each assignment. Their expenses are covered and they receive a modest stipend.

MSF teams are composed of international volunteers and skilled local staff. Together, they work closely with national medical professionals and cooperate with other aid organizations.

Speaking Out to End Suffering

MSF unites direct medical care with a commitment to speaking out against the causes of suffering and the obstacles to providing effective assistance. MSF volunteers raise the concerns of their patients with governments, the United Nations, other international bodies, the general public, and the media. In a wide range of circumstances, MSF volunteers have spoken out against violations of international humanitarian law they have witnessed — from Chechnya to Sudan.

Based on its field experience, MSF is addressing obstacles preventing people in the developing world from obtaining affordable, effective treatments for diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis. Through its Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines, MSF is advocating to lower drug prices, stimulate research and development of new treatments, and overcome trade and other barriers to accessing treatments.

In the United States and worldwide, MSF raises public awareness of the plight of people at risk. The organization sends field volunteers and staff to speak at international and national conferences, and arranges informational events and traveling exhibitions. Special public education projects have addressed the stark realities of living without access to medicines, the devastation caused by malnutrition, and the hardships of life in a refugee camp.

Financial Independence and Accountability

To maintain its operational independence and flexibility, MSF relies on the general public for nearly 80 percent of its operating funds. The remaining 20 percent of funds come from international agencies and governments. The organization counted more than 3.1 million individuals, foundations, corporations, and nonprofit organizations among its donors worldwide in 2004. In 2004, MSF's worldwide income was $568 million. In the United States, nearly 380,000 private donors contributed more than $91 million to MSF-USA.

posted July 24, 2006 03:14 AM              

The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.
- Albert Einstein

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.
- Annie Dillard

Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action.
- Benjamin Disraeli

Well done is better than well said.
- Benjamin Franklin

Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.
- Edmund Burke

I am only one,
But still I am one.
I cannot do everything,
But still I can do something;
And because I cannot do everything
I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.
- Edward Everett Hale

Bite off more than you can chew, then chew it.
- Ella Williams

Thou shalt not be a victim. Thou shalt not be a perpetrator. Above all, thou shalt not be a bystander.
- Holocaust Museum, Washington, DC

To live for results would be to sentence myself to continuous frustration. My only sure reward is in my actions and not from them.
- Hugh Prather

A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle.
- Kahlil Gibran

For those who have seen the Earth from space, and for the hundreds and perhaps thousands more who will, the experience most certainly changes your perspective. The things that we share in our world are far more valuable than those which divide us.
- Donald Williams

Know that although in the eternal scheme of things you are small, you are also unique and irreplaceable, as are all your fellow humans everywhere in the world.
- Margaret Laurence

An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.
- Mohandas K. Gandhi

The person who tries to live alone will not succeed as a human being. His heart withers if it does not answer another heart. His mind shrinks away if he hears only the echoes of his own thoughts and finds no other inspiration.
- Pearl S. Buck

History does nothing; it does not possess immense riches, it does not fight battles. It is men, real, living, who do all this.
- Karl Marx

Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.
-Douglas Adams

Every human heart is human.
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The oneness of human beings is the basic ethical thread that holds us together.
- Muhammad Yunus

posted July 26, 2006 01:25 PM              

by the way, Mirandee, those quotes are very inspiring.

I really liked this one:

Thou shalt not be a victim. Thou shalt not be a perpetrator. Above all, thou shalt not be a bystander.
- Holocaust Museum, Washington, DC

It really makes you think how much responsibility we each have to do everything in our power to see that people from every nation enjoy basic human rights and dignity.
We really are "our brother's keeper".