Doctors Without Borders, or Medecins Sans Frontieres as they're know internationally, is a non-governmental organization aimed at providing health care to the 33 million refugees and
internally-displaced people around the world. This Saturday, I had the chance to visit (along with mass comm professor Sue Weill and Chris Boehm) a mock refugee camp in Houston hosted by the organization. A Refugee Camp in the Heart of the City is an effort to educate people about the realities faced by millions who are forced to leave their homes because of war, famine or natural disasters.Our tour was lead by George Record, a surgeon from Connecticut, who volunteers for Doctors Without Borders in places like Chad and other areas of Subsaharan Africa. He described the conditions refugees endure as they travel to Doctors Without Borders camps, which can be anywhere from two miles from their homes to 200. He said most refugees arrive dehydrated and hungry or worse. Many are children.
The tour consisted of various tents highlighting important stations in a refugee camp, how they are constructed and what function they serve. Some of the more notable aspects of the tour are
examples of the rations refugees receive, how water is filtered and distributed and how medical care is provided in makeshift hospitals.An interesting fact I learned was how diseases we consider unlikely to affect people in the United States can wreak havoc in refugee camps. The close quarters people share at refugee camps are catalysts for disease outbreaks. A dysentery outbreak at a camp could cost the lives of hundreds of people if not treated. For children, measles, which is rarely found in the U.S., can spread like wildfire.
The final stop for A Refugee Camp in the Heart of the City tour will be in Dallas from Oct. 11-14 from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. The event will include a photo exhibit and film festival.
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