Healing Our World: Inside Doctors Without Borders

2007 Moonbeam Children's Book Awards:

     - Bronze Medalist, Young Adult Non-Fiction Category, and
     - Bronze Medalist, Peacemaker Award Category

ForeWord Magazine's Book of the Year Awards finalist (YA Non-Fiction category), 2007

Excerpt:

"When I tell friends at home in Canada abut the things I have seen, they often say, 'It must be so depressing!' But my work has never felt depressing. Doctors Without Borders is an organization built to act, to make things better. Together with other volunteers and the support of millions of people around the world, we don_t have to sit by helplessly and see a disaster unfold before us, wondering what on earth we can do. The gift of action is ours."

When children are caught in civil wars, when earthquakes destroy homes and villages, when AIDS and other diseases shatter families and communities - the volunteers of Doctors Without Borders are there. Their mission is simple - to bring life-saving care to the world's neediest people and to speak out when the rights of the people in their care are abused or violated.

Médecins Sans Frontières, known in English as Doctors Without Borders and by its volunteers as MSF, is the world's largest independent medical humanitarian relief organization. Every year, more than 3,000 MSF volunteers and 12,000 local men and women bring medical aid to people in more than 70 countries.

In Healing Our World, David Morley presents his own story and the stories of other MSFers who have volunteered in some of the most dangerous and forgotten corners of the world - theCongo, El Salvador, Chechnya, Bangladesh, Mozambique, Afghanistan, southern Africa. These are stories about healing and helping people, about making the world a better place - stories filled with sorrow and hope, anger and idealism, determination and passion.

• The words and experiences - good and bad - of MSF volunteers who come from all over the world and every walk of life.

• Information about MSF's history, how it selects its volunteers and decides where to send them.
• Includes photographs from the field.

KLIATT

Medecins Sans Frontieres/Doctors Without Borders is the world's largest independent medical-humanitarian organization. The organization's charter states that they offer assistance to populations in distress without regard to race, religion, creed or political affiliation. The statistics documenting the need are staggering—over a billion people in the world live without clean drinking water, and half a million children die of measles every year in countries too poor to supply vaccines, for example. David Morley served as executive director of the Canadian section of MSF for seven years and his book is a well-written testament to the organization and to the volunteers and staff who serve. The first half of the book is devoted to describing the history, the need, and the operations of the worldwide organization, and the second half offers journal entries from volunteers. Their stories range from tending refugees of war in the Congo to treating victims of the AIDS pandemic in Zambia, detailing the compassion and humor of the doctors as well as the desperation of the situation. There are panels interspersed with the text that provide additional information and b/w photos, obviously not taken by professional photographers, lend visual drama to the conditions the volunteers face. Young people and adults interested in a career in humanitarian service will find much to think about in this easily read book. Reviewer: Ellen Welty

For seven years, David Morley served as the Executive Director of the Canadian section of Doctors Without Borders. His work took him to refugee camps in the rebel-held areas of Congo, to earthquake-shattered villages in El Salvador, to the simple huts of destitute AIDS patients in Zambia.