Photos by CLAIRE ZUGMEYER MSF volunteers warn displaced
persons the dangers of land mines. The exhibition, “A Refugee
Camp in the Heart of the City” ran Oct. 25 to 29 at the Santa
Monica Pier.
By Dharshani Dharmawardena
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
Years ago, Marilyn Monroe called diamonds a girl’s best
friend. Today, they are an Angolan refugee’s worst enemy.
Because of ongoing warfare among tribes for control of diamond
mines in Africa, many people are being killed or forced to flee
their homes in search of safety.
And often, volunteers from Médcins Sans
Frontières/Doctors Without Borders, a private, nonprofit,
non-governmental organization arrive first at scenes like this to
provide medical relief and shelter to thousands of uprooted
persons.
“An internally displaced person has to leave his home and
settle somewhere within his own country,” said Jean Philippe
Tizi, an MSF volunteer who helped Angolan refugees displaced to
Zambia. “A refugee has to flee home and settle in a different
country.”
Today, there are more than 39 million IDPs and refugees in the
world, many of whom have left their homes with only the clothes on
their backs.
To educate people on challenges refugees and IDPs face, Tizi and
other volunteers led tours and provided information at the
organization’s “A Refugee Camp in the Heart of the
City.” The exhibit, which ran from Oct. 25 to 29 at the Santa
Monica Pier, featured people who lived in such a camp.
At the exhibit, visitors could see how displaced people adjusted
to their new environment, making bicycles out of wood and sandals
out of a tire, for example. Oftentimes, they live in plastic
sheet tents and eat a mere 2,100 calories a day.
 Photos by CLAIRE ZUGMEYER Medcins Sans Frontieres
volunteer Jean-Philippe Tizi shows visitors how
refugees get water. Taps like this one are often fixtures in
refugee camps. “Most of us have little or no personal
experience that allows us to understand the true horrors faced by
people forced to flee their homes,” said MSF executive
director Joelle Tanguy in a statement.
“Their plight is unacceptable, yet lack of knowledge means
that little action is taken to change their situation,” she
continued.
Leslie Croshaw, a graduate student in the School of Public
Health, interns at the West Coast headquarters of MSF and
volunteered at the exhibit.
“Any kind of educational experience when it’s
interactive is going to hit home much harder,” she said.
“Not everyone reads the news or listens to National Public
Radio, so it’s a good way to find out this way.”
Croshaw said children would especially benefit from the
experience.
Founded in 1971 by a small group of French doctors, MSF has 18
section offices worldwide, recruiting volunteers from a variety of
countries.
For providing efficient and professional assistance to people in
crisis situations despite political circumstances or sympathies,
the organization won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999.
Volunteers are often doctors, nurses, logistics experts, and
water and sanitation engineers. While they are on a mission, which
lasts from six to 12 months, volunteers receive a $700 stipend.
 Refugees, who sometimes leave everything they own behind,
create makeshift toys and furniture, like this wooden bicycle, to
feel at home.
Lack of clean water, food and proper sanitation create a
breeding ground for malnutrition and infectious diseases like
cholera as thousands of people displaced from their homes flock to
the same area.
MSF volunteers try to alleviate the problems through education,
proper nutrition and, of course, medical attention.
Medical services even extend to mental health. Tizi said young
children especially face psychological repercussions from being
displaced by war.
Volunteers also voice their concerns about suffering and
atrocities to the United Nations, governments, and the media.
“Part of what MSF deals with is being able to witness and
relate to the world what is going on in a certain situation,”
said Anne Luke, a volunteer and graduate student at UCLA’s
School of Nursing.
Tizi said many of these uprooted persons live in refugee camps
indefinitely.
In places like Lebanon, Sudan and Sri Lanka, people have been
born, raised and married in camps.
Luke worked at the Palestinian Red Crescent Society Hospital in
Saida, Lebanon, where some Palestinian refugees, who lack
citizenship status and cannot legally hold certain occupations,
have lived in the camp for over 50 years.
“The Palestinians have no basic human rights in
Lebanon,” she said. “So they’re very limited in
what they can do.”
Luke said although some Palestinian doctors and nurses work in
the hospital, the Lebanese government did not recognize their
occupations.
Most of these medical personnel received their salaries through
the Palestinian Authority, which lagged months behind in
payments.
“They came to work, whether they were being paid or
not,” Luke continued. “But once they got there, the
motivation was not really there because they did not have the
incentive of being paid.”
Luke, a pediatric nurse, helped start a pediatric program at the
hospital.
“Things did not progress as quickly as I would have
liked,” she said. “The program was not finished when I
left, but it had been started and I felt the nurses were more
motivated. They liked what they were doing.”
Like the refugees, volunteers themselves need to adjust to the
sometimes difficult living conditions and new cultures.
Tizi said working in different countries meant adhering to
local peoples’ traditions and using diplomacy.
“You have to respect their culture because a lot of these
countries have certain medical protocol,” he said.
Oftentimes, countries have different medicines for maladies than
the ones given by MSF.
Luke said lack of speed at the hospital resulted from cultural
differences as well. Traditionally, Palestinians take more time to
complete their tasks while American volunteers are used to a
culture where things move at a faster pace, she said.
Nonetheless, people she met were very friendly.
“The Palestinians were incredibly warm and welcoming to
me,” Luke said. “They considered Bill Clinton a friend.
They would ask me questions about him and Hillary, but I told them
I did not know them.”
Living in Lebanon for eight months, Luke said she only
experienced one instance of bad feelings toward Americans.
“There was a billboard near a grocery store where I
shopped that kind of downplayed Americans,” she said.
“They felt the bloodshed came from our bombs, from our
government.”
Although being a volunteer for MSF requires prior work in
developing countries in addition to professional experience, Luke
encouraged anyone interested in the program to apply.
“I hear a lot of people say “˜I always wanted to do
it,'” she said. “The only thing I would say is
“˜Well, do it then.'”
“If you don’t have the responsibilities like raising
a family right now, this is the time to do it.”
The exhibit will move to the Magic Johnson Recreation Center
Nov. 2 ““ 6. For more information, call the MSF West Coast
Office at (310) 277-2793.