1. Medecins sans frontieres
______________________________
doctors without borders
“Put Your Ideals Into Practice.”
Recruitment slogan from the MSF / DWB website

2. Haiti 2010
Doctors without Borders is among
the first relief agencies to arrive in
Port au Prince

3. Syria 2012
MSF deploys medical teams to
region to provide treatment for
victims of government violence
Public disclosure:
Syrian government’s strategy
of using medicine as a weapon
of persecution
Arresting wounded people
arrest and torture of doctors
and health care workers

4. MSF Mission: The “Charter”
Volunteer association of doctors and health sector workers
AIM: humanitarian/medical assistance to distressed
populations…………advocacy
Principles:
Assistance irrespective of race, religion, creed or political
convictions
Neutrality and impartiality in the name of universal medical
ethics
The right to humanitarian assistance
Respect for professional codes of ethics
Independence from all political, economic or religious powers
Voluntary commitment without compensation

5. MSF Mission: The “Charter”
Volunteer association of doctors and health sector workers
AIM: humanitarian/medical assistance to distressed
populations…………advocacy
Temoignage
“the witnessing and shaming of humanitarian abuses”

6. MSF Core Values:
humanitarianism
medical ethics
organization absorbs and mirrors
values of individual members
organization enables individual
members to act on and maximize
the effects of their existing value
commitments

7. Volunteerism
“MSF is an organization based on volunteerism. The
volunteer not only gives freely of his/her humanity,
but creates a link of solidarity from his/her own
community to a population in need…It is the
independent nature of the volunteer’s commitment
that… ensures the organization’s continued
dynamism.”

8. MSF
Organizational Structure
Participatory governance: General Assembly
Operational Sections
Non-operational Sections
Public Health Centers
Training Facilities
Varying settings and modes of volunteer service

9. MSF
Culture and Organizational
Socialization
• Organization’s structure and functions built out of
volunteer members – training / expertise / commitments
• What is not needed…
complex machinery of enculturation and socialization
members’ existing ethical enculturation is harnessed by
organization

10. 1999 Nobel Prize
• “Despite grand debates on world
order, the act of humanitarianism
comes down to one thing:
individual human beings reaching
out to their counterparts who find
themselves in the most difficult
circumstance. One bandage at a
time, one suture at a time, one
vaccination at a time.”
Dr. James Orbinski, International
President
Medecins Sans Frontieres
“Ours Is Not A Contented Action”