Listen: An Interview With Marc Levesque On The Ground In Darfur
December 2009
140,000 people in Darfur rely on Marc Levesque, Head of Mission in Darfur for our grantee, the Comité d’Aide Médicale (CAM), and his team for the most basic of life-saving health care. Having worked with humanitarian aid organizations in Africa for 10 years, Marc now manages all of CAM’s activities in the West Darfur: fixed clinics, mobile clinics, water & sanitation projects, and community health education workshops. 
Listen to an interview with Marc and Pierre Crémieux, the President of the Medical Aid Committee.
Children’s Voices
November 2009
Their names are Rajan, Sri, Mehala, Matti, Nathiya, Darshini, Selvakumari…
They form a team, young and newly united. Since May, they have come together at our Community Center, each with his or her own history colored by their country’s past conflicts and disasters. Through their words, art and body language they show a truthful enthusiasm. They want to believe that their dreams can be achieved. They want to believe that each person they come across signals the beginning of an adventure and that they will contribute to a child, a mother or a father’s future.
Let’s listen to the dreams of their drawings.
- Sophie Wodon
Sri Lanka Psychosocial Coordinator
Our Grantee: The Comité d’Aide Médicale
“I am Mekala and I study at the Viranaga Mixed School. There are seven people in my family. This is the first time that I have ever created a drawing. This drawing is my dream. There is a waterfall, mountains, fish, flowers and trees. This is the environment of my dreams and I like playing in this space. I can neither see nor enjoy this drawing because it is just a dream. I do not want the war to return. I would like to stay in this village, enjoy this environment.” - Mekala, Age 13,
South Korali Patu, Sri Lanka
My name is Nathiya and I study at the Utuchchenai Mixed School. In 2006, there was war and then displacement. In 2008, we came back. I lost my house and rice fields. My heart feels sad for that loss. I thought about the house and the rice fields before the war. I kept them in my heart, and then draw them. Because of the conflict, I lost my education. Only today can I go back to class. I wish to start in the 6th or 7th grade. That would be wonderful.” - Nathiya, Age 13,
South Korali Patu, Sri Lanka
Cleaning Up Hospitals, One Incinerator at a Time
November 2009
Hospitals and clinics are dedicated to healing but those in conflict zones – limited by meager funding, poor infrastructure and lack of training – often end up inadvertently increasing the risk of contamination for their staff and neighboring communities by throwing away syringes, soiled bandages and other infectious material in open dumps, which often double as a favorite play site of children.
A potent issue in health centers in post-crisis zones around the world, we decided to tackle it in Angola, where we sponsor an environmental health program in Uige Province and the capital city of Luanda. The innovative, sustainable approach includes designing and building incinerators and hermetically sealed waste treatment pits for anatomical waste, both of which are adapted to local socio-economic and environmental conditions. Trainings – for local artisans in their construction and use, and for local medical staff in the proper separation and treatment of infectious waste – is essential so that the method can be replicated locally.
The Child and Maternal Health Center of Pedreira delivers 80% of the city’s babies. Despite the fact that the Health Center is located in a neighborhood sporadically affected by cholera outbreaks, it lacked a proper system to manage medical waste.
Nurse Isabelle Kutumua
“In the past, without incinerators, managing biomedical waste was a significant problem for us,” Isabelle Kutumua, 30, a nurse at the Center explains.
“We were limited to pits and trenches to dispose of the waste. Medical materials were burnt in one open-air pit and the placentas in another one, without processing or treatment… We didn’t have any other means to do better. The smoke was a major inconvenience for the staff and the people living close to the dumping sites, not to mention environmental pollution.”
Now the Center has a new biomedical waste system and a healthier community and environment.
“Both [the new incinerator and the anatomical waste treatment pit] ensure not just a helpful and cost-effective system for waste disposal management but also training and awareness-raising for the paramedical staff. We are not concerned by the smoke anymore, pollution of the environment is considerably reduced and our work is safer,” notes Isabelle. “Big thanks.”
From The Ground Up: Launching A Program In Chad
November 2009
Mission: Set up a program to provide health care for 40,000 Sudanese refugees living in desolate refugee camps in Chad, just over the border from Darfur.
Time Allotted: One month
In this interview, Isabelle Voiret, our Medical Advisor, and Béatrice Galbas, our Field Coordinator give us an inside look at what it takes to build a medical program from the ground up.
Q. This past June, you launched a mission in Chad. Can you tell us about your responsibilities in those first days?
A: Our first month in Chad was dedicated to ensuring a smooth continuation of health care in the Iridimi and Touloum refugee camps, which have been home to roughly 46,000 Sudanese refugees for the last four to five years, when they fled conflict-stricken Darfur.
When we arrived, our first assignments focused on integrating our work into the community and understanding their needs. We met with refugees and community leaders to discuss the changes that would come as an emergency NGO, like MSF, handed over the provision of medical care to a transitional post-crisis NGO, like us.
Q: The clinics are located in refugee camps very close to the Sudanese border; how do your programs place you in the reality of the region?
A: All together, this region is deeply reliant on humanitarian aid; most of the Darfuri refugees are registered with the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), while the World Food Program (WFP) covers most of their nutritional needs, and other UN agencies and international NGOs provide other necessities and various kinds of care. We are a part of this mix and deal with the realities faced by our beneficiaries every day: poverty, displacement, insecurity and uncertainty. You can see that the needs are considerable but working with refugees, you find that most of all, they aspire to return to their homes.
What makes our programs in this region unique is that we operate in a triangle of interrelated conflicts in the neighboring countries of Sudan, Chad and the Central African Republic (CAR). Having operated in western Sudan and northern CAR, our program in eastern Chad brings our knowledge of the region and its people full circle. This is especially the case for those from Darfur, who benefit from both of our programs in Chad and Sudan.
Q: What has been the reaction of the local Chadian community to this program and to the refugees?
A: While Sudanese refugees have been in Chad for years, in these two camps there has been little interaction between them and their Chadian hosts. There are a few Chadian villages surrounding the refugee camps but it is not a large community and they have seldom had access to the camps’ services in the past. We hope to build bridges between these communities by setting up a communal clinic steering committee comprised of both Chadians and Sudanese refugees, which will ease any potential friction, and by giving the camps’ Chadian neighbors greater access to the free health care available inside the camps. In this sense, there is already positive movement: Chadian patients make up 12-15% of our consultations.
New Beginnings in Chad
June 2009
The border region between Chad and Sudan remains one of the world’s most dire humanitarian crises. Facing its own internal conflict as well as neighboring disputes, Chad has become home to Sudanese refugees fleeing the violence in Darfur. The 240,000 refugees and 170,000 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) living in camps dotting the harsh desert of eastern Chad are completely reliant on humanitarian aid. As the conflict spills over the border, deaths and injuries, sexual violence, displacement and disease have become constant not only for the refugees but for the local Chadian host communities.
Already deeply involved in the crisis on the Sudanese side of the border, our team led an exploratory mission to eastern Chad in March 2009. The outcome: A new essential health care program in Chad’s Wadi Fira region. Doctors Without Borders – Luxembourg (MSF-L), an emergency NGO which has provided health care for several camps in the region since 2004, is handing part of its responsibilities to our new team in Chad on July 1, 2009. In the Iridimi and Touloum refugee camps, we will soon provide essential health care, water and sanitation, and community health education services to the camps’ 41,500 Sudanese refugee residents and the Chadian communities that host them. As always, we plan to pay particular attention to maternal and child health and to foster sustainable health by training and supporting the Ministry of Health and local communities.
MAC Welcomes CAM Executive Director Maggi Hughes to the U.S.
May 2009
The Medical Aid Committee welcomed a visit from Comité d’Aide Médicale Executive Director, Maggi Hughes. Ms. Hughes spent the week of May 11th in the U.S. strengthening the MAC-CAM partnership, building upon its existing network of friends and sharing a field perspective on our international post-crisis health programs. She held a private fundraiser and met with advisors, prospective donors and potential partners in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Boston.
Exploring Health Needs in Chad
April 2009
Chad is enduring two debilitating humanitarian crises which extend across its blurred eastern border with Sudan’s Darfur region: The influx of 240,000 Darfuri refugees and its own internal conflict between the government and rebel forces, which has forced 170,000 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) to flee their homes. As the crisis has become protracted, emergency NGOs are starting to pull out of the country. We currently operate an integrated primary health, community health education and environmental health program across the border in West Darfur, but were recently asked to consider providing health care in two refugee camps in the Wadi Fira region of eastern Chad, the temporary home of 41,500 Sudanese refugees. In addition to providing life-saving care, the proposed project includes an expanded focus on prevention, community health education and strengthening the work of the Ministry of Health and its staff.
We responded to requests by sending an exploratory mission to eastern Chad to survey the health needs and logistical requirements of a potential health program. Having seen the extent of the needs and the nature of the crisis, we believe that those living in eastern Chad cannot afford for their health care to be discontinued and we hope to implement an integrated health care program there shortly.
Stay tuned for more news on our forthcoming health programs in Chad.
Exploring Health Needs In Haiti
February 2009
Haitians have been living through a series of humanitarian crises, whether natural or man-made, for decades. In the lull after the political storms and all-too-real hurricanes, the fundamental issue of basic health returns as one of the foremost needs in Haiti. With the highest rates of infant, under five and maternal mortality in the Western Hemisphere, Haiti is in need of sustainable, accessible, locally-driven health programs. In January, we launched an exploratory mission to Haiti, which returned with findings of abundant need for affordable health care and safe drinking water.
Having met with numerous local communities, NGOs, official representatives of the Ministry of Public Health and Population (MSPP), and international donors, our Medical Director and Logistics Director are enthusiastic about possible collaborations in Haiti. We are particularly thankful for the guidance provided by Partners in Health and Zanmi Lasante during the exploratory mission.
Our team is now writing proposals for primary health programs to increase affordable access to health care and to strengthen local health capacities before transitioning programs to the MSPP.
Stay tuned for more news on our upcoming health programs in Haiti.
The Medical Aid Committee Receives 501(c)3 Status
Ocotber 2008
The Medical Aid Committee, which was incorporated in the state of Massachusetts in June 2007, has obtained its 501(c)3 status from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and is now exempt from paying federal taxes.
The Medical Aid Committee has been classified as a “public charity,” meaning that a majority of its contributions come from the general public, private foundations or grants from government agencies. As such, donations made to the Medical Aid Committee are tax-deductible. To invest in sustainable health care for children, women and men recovering from crises around the world, donate now.
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