I want to tout the Official Website Charity™ today, Doctors Without Borders (DwB), or, to use its official name, Médicins Sans Frontières. Reader Pyers pointed out to me an article in today’s Torygraph that describes the organization and its efforts. And believe me, I vetted this organization thoroughly before I designed it as the site’s charity: it’s completely secular, full of dedicated people, and the vast bulk of donations (over 87%) go for medical assistance. It gets the highest rating from Charity Navigator.
Of course, one of the reasons I want you to read this piece is because eventually I’ll ask readers to donate again, as I’m thinking of having a raffle for Faith versus Fact when it comes out, with a specially autographed first-edition hardcover copy (with a drawing to the winner’s specifications) going to a randomly selected reader who donates a modest sum to the organization.
At any rate, the Torygraph piece is long, dealing largely with a description of how DwB operated during the Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone. I doubt that I would have had the courage to work with Ebola victims! After that, the piece talks a little about the organization:
For four decades MSF volunteers have worked in war zones and disaster areas, but probably never in conditions as harrowing or lonely as this. ‘It was awful, really, really awful, seventh level of hell stuff,’ Henry Gray, the British operations manager of MSF’s Ebola Response Team, said.
It is easy to be sceptical about large international NGOs, to see them as bloated, bureaucratic and ineffective. I was appalled by the way they used the Haiti earthquake of 2010 to raise vast amounts of money, little of which benefited the victims. But I have long made an exception for MSF, not least because I have repeatedly found their volunteers quietly working away in appalling conditions in some of the world’s worst hell holes.
Long after most of the other NGOs – and television cameras – had left Haiti, for example, I found MSF in Cité Soleil, reputedly the Western hemisphere’s worst slum, treating legions of destitute Haitians racked by cholera. In 2012 I found them secretly helping the bombed and traumatised civilians of rebel-held northern Syria when no other major NGO dared operate there.
Founded in 1971 by a group of French doctors outraged by Nigeria’s blockade and starvation of the secessionist province of Biafra, and by the international community’s silent complicity in that atrocity, its medics have since worked on the front line of countless catastrophes. They have delivered aid to beleaguered civilians during wars, genocides, revolutions, plagues, earthquakes, floods and famines. They have risked their lives in all the world’s most notorious ‘beauty spots’ – Rwanda, Congo, Somalia, Bosnia, Cambodia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Chechnya, Gaza, the Central African Republic, Darfur, South Sudan, eastern Ukraine. ‘First in, last out’ is their mantra.
Can you beat that? There’s more, and I’ll have to limit myself lest I reproduce the whole piece:
MSF has had scores of volunteers killed, wounded and abducted, but curtails a mission only in extreme circumstances – after five of its staff were kidnapped in Syria, the murder of five others in Afghanistan, and multiple killings and abductions in Somalia. In 1999 it won the Nobel Peace Prize.
It is now the world’s largest medical humanitarian organisation, with 23 national associations, an annual budget of well over $1 billion and more than 35,000 local and international staff in more than 60 countries. Yet it remains more of a grass-roots movement than an organisation – a small army of doctors, nurses, engineers and logisticians all committed to the ethos of its founders.
Its primary goal is to provide health care to people in need regardless of their race, religion or affiliations. To do that it remains resolutely neutral in any conflict, and independent of any political, religious or economic powers. It will talk to the most brutal terrorist organisations and repressive regimes to access the civilian populations they control – the Taliban, Islamic State, Somalia’s al-Shabaab, Boko Haram. It insists only that its staff’s safety is assured, and that it can deliver aid without interference. It withdrew from North Korea in 1998 because the regime was diverting MSF aid, and spurned the US-led humanitarian programme in Afghanistan because it was part of the battle for Afghan hearts and minds.
By the same token MSF medics will treat anyone – wounded al-Qaeda fighters, Syrian soldiers or Sudanese cattle raiders who have attacked villages and slaughtered women and children – provided they leave their weapons outside. It knows that they may well resume their killing once they have recovered. ‘We don’t do good or bad. It’s not for us to judge,’ Paul McMaster, the retired NHS surgeon who chairs MSF UK, insists.
Now how can you do worse than help an organization that won the Nobel Peace Prize? Finally, if you’re not convinced, have a look at this:
MSF’s pursuit of neutrality and independence extends to fundraising. Almost all its income is from private donors – five million of them. It seldom accepts money from governments, but never from the defence, oil, mining and pharmaceutical industries. Unlike other NGOs, moreover, it does not exploit specific disasters to raise funds for general use, or use emotionally manipulative images. Six days after the 2004 Asian tsunami it infuriated other NGOs by announcing it had raised enough.
MSF is lean. The base salary for a field worker is less than £12,000 a year, and Joanne Liu, the president, earns a mere £76,000. Even top officials fly economy. Life in the field is so spartan that the MSF house where I stayed in Freetown turned off its generator all day to save money.
The piece is much longer than the excerpts I’ve given here, and describes the organization as egalitarian, full or arguments, contentious, but above all immensely dedicated. Running it is apparently like herding cats. But it is about as good as a secular organization can get (that’s not to imply that religious ones are better!), and if we atheists are going to do something tangible to make a better world, this is a very good way to do it. Best of all, DwB is not American or British, or anything. They’re cosmopolitan in both composition and the people they help; and, after all, shouldn’t aid go not just to those who happen to live in your country, but to those on the planet who have the greatest need?
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MSF has always been one of my favourite charities because they are secular and have low administration costs. Because of their secular and political non affiliation, they tend to get into places other charities cannot always get into.
Wonderful work. I have met some of their doctors in Ecuador; every one of them has been inspiring.
It’s actually spelled “médecins”. They’re great.
This is an excellent charity and deserves our support. I make monthly contributions by way of my credit card. This helps to give them a steady stream of revenue.
John J. Fitzgerald
It is a very good article, well worth a read. You couldn’t have chosen better PCC ….
Those men and women are my heroes! I admire their work tremendously. I had not realized they were entirely secular, but I’m very glad to hear it.
MSF is the real deal. That “true” altruism we were discussing the other day? This is it. They boldly go where none else dare.
If you shop at all at Amazon, be sure to sign up for their “smile” thing and designate MSF as the charity. Every time you buy anything from Amazon after that, they toss a few pennies in the jar for MSF.
b&
Unlike some other charity organization and just about all politicians — The mission is much more important than the money. It is a rare combination this MSF.
Darn – I don’t seem to see it on Canuck amazon
Thanks for the reminder… Had totally forgot about that smile program.
PCC, MSF is the main charity to which I’ve donated for the past several years. I think the organization is great. And I’ve increased my contributions to them recently because of their work with Ebola. By the way, I ordered your book from Amazon months ago, so I’m not eligible for your signed copy! 🙁
Oh, we all ordered it. Surely we’re eligible for the signed copy (assuming we meet Jerry’s requirements); if we don’t want to have 2 copies around, the unsigned one can always be donated to a school, library, prison, etc.
@Ben Goren: I didn’t know about the Amazon smile thing. I get a lot of things there, and I’ve signed up with MSF as my charity. Thanks for the information.
I’ve always been a big admirer of MSF. They largely embody all the qualities a charity should. Further, their focus is on those they help rather than kudos for themselves, unlike some that could be mentioned.
One of my favourite authors is Ken Follett. In his novel Lie Down With Lions a doctor/nurse couple working for MSF go to Afghanistan during the Russian occupation. It’s one of his best spy/adventure novels, although the reputation of MSF for independence is taken advantage of by a baddie.
Unfortunately, MSF, like some other NGOs, pushes the anti-Israeli line. For example, in 2009 MSF alleged that Israel was conducting “indiscriminate bombings” in Gaza. Dr. Marie Pierre Allie, President of the French Branch of the organization, said that Israel’s actions in Gaza were actually worse than the Darfur genocide in the Sudan.
(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-dershowitz/moonbats-against-israel_b_661916.html). There is apparently a pervasive anti-Israeli sentiment among MSF volunteers who refused to work with Israeli medical team helping on the ground in Congo as alleged in this Haaretz article (http://www.haaretz.com/news/features/israeli-doctors-in-congo-to-aid-burn-victims-get-slammed-for-occupation-1.302585), although MSF disputed this allegation. In another example a senior MSF official called a legitimate blockade imposed by Israel on Hamas-ruled Gaza “an open-air prison” and described Israel’s self-defence against Hamas attacks as “people of Gaza paying the price for living under siege and for their acts of resistance.” According to this MSF official, indiscriminate missile attacks on Israeli civilians by Palestinian terrorists are described as “prisoners have organised into armed groups and resist their indefinite detention by firing rockets over the prison wall.” Presumably these “acts of resistance” are to be encouraged. http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/israelgaza-conflict-medical-charity-official-likens-job-to-patching-up-torture-victims-in-an-openair-prison-9613296.html
All this evidence regrettably leads me to conclude that MSF is not that different from other politically driven NGOs and refrain from donating to this organisation.
Some of Israel’s bombings last time were problematic. For example; they bombed at least one school in Palestine even though the UN had told them more than a dozen times that it only had civilians sheltering in it. (And yes, I know Hamas has launched missiles from schools in the past, deliberately putting the lives of their children at risk.)
I’m not anti-Israel in this argument; I try to look at both sides fairly. I’m just saying there are times when Israel has got it wrong.
I’m not dismissing what you have to say, but I’d like to hear MSF’s side of the story before I pass judgment on an organization that has a pretty impressive track record.
Having read that Haaretz article, I must say it’s a lot of smoke but little fire. “Had the impression” “felt as though”, nothing substantial. And one MSF member didn’t like the Israeli music – but for no other reason than that she preferred quiet.
Other than the opinion of some MSF volunteers being “pro-Palestinian” there is no sign that either side did not want to collaborate.
In short, storm, teacup.
I think Elis comment is unreasonable. Those working for an organisation have a right to state their opinions, and that shouldn’t be held against the organisation itself. Personally MSF has been my charity of choice for a long time now. I used to know a woman (of Jewish background) who worked for MSF in the field and she had the highest praise for their effectiveness and professionalism.
I agree. I give to MSF monthly.
I’ve supported MSF for a long time; they remind me a lot of the USAF Medical Corps folks I’d grown up with given the frequently extreme environments they work in. I’ve refused to support the International Red Cross for quite a few years now because they don’t make good use of my money; all I hear from them are excuses for funneling that money to promotion agencies. and overpaid managers. Eli claims MSF have a political agenda, a claim which I find absolutely laughable – like most doctors who serve in wars they detest pretty much any government involved in wars and will say what they think; doctors generally don’t choose sides, not even the military doctors, they only care about helping people.
I started to support MSF with a monthly donation when PCC made his case for them a few years ago (I believe).
Their work fighting ebola has been absolutely tremendous and that alone makes them worthy of support; but then there are so many other things they do.
MSF are incredible people.
It was the charity that Hitch could regularly be heard giving his blessing. Though not the term he would have used.
Excellent post, thank you. I have given sporadically to MSF in the past, but your post finally encouraged me to set up a monthly contribution.
I must confess I haven’t supported MSF, but I feel I should sometimes.
That said, I would add that they have important (support) work done by non-health-care people as well. A cousin of mine has logistics, for example, with them – which as one might imagine is a real challenge!