BONNE ANNÉE :: 2015
FELIZ AÑO :: 2015
Dear all,
January is upon us and I’d like to take this opportunity to look back with you over the events of the past year and, more importantly, imagine together the future of Médecins du Monde.
But let me begin by wishing you and your loved ones a New Year full of success, joy, optimism and shared solidarity.
2014 will certainly be remembered as a grim year. The civil war in Syria is continuing behind closed doors and amid the indifference of the international community. Words no longer suffice to describe the atrocities being inflicted upon the Syrian population, yet somehow relief must still be provided. And our Syrian teams are doing just that, daily and tirelessly, far from the media spotlight. Meanwhile, new extremist organisations have joined the fray, adding further wars to the war and setting the region ablaze with radical demands that would seem to know no bounds. This is why we are needed in Iraqi Kurdistan today – to provide care to the displaced populations, deliver medicines to the most inaccessible places and offer a little comfort in the midst of all the horror.
2014 will also be remembered for yet another military intervention by Israel in the Gaza Strip. An unequal intervention that makes even further away the prospect of peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Despite the damage caused to health facilities, our teams continued to provide care in the outlying health centres after the intervention was launched. After a summer of mourning, Gaza now resembles one vast open-air prison in need of rebuilding.
The news is no better in the Central African Republic. Episodes of extreme violence are a reminder of just how volatile the security situation still is, and that the political crisis which has given way to pillaging and inter-religious massacres is far from over. With the local population, Médecins du Monde’s teams are trying to rebuild healthcare solutions. As a large proportion of the Muslim population has fled the capital, we have opened a programme in Cameroon, close to the border, where these displaced people have now settled. The United Nations forces, which arrived late on the scene, have not yet managed to re-establish security, so we need to be vigilant without losing sight of our duty to bear witness to a situation that has dropped off the media radar!
There is an area in the Sahel that remains poor, vulnerable and in turmoil, where armed actors change sides as events unfurl. In Mali, if you believe the official version, the situation is under control. In Burkina Faso, following the “gentle” removal of the former president, there is hope for a more democratic future. But we are still working in Djibo, in the north of Burkina and, from what we can see, the displaced populations have not chosen to return to Mali. Médecins du Monde’s field teams, working on large-scale sexual and reproductive health programmes in support of ailing health systems, are endeavouring to get things up and running again in the midst of a chronic crisis that we would all like to see come to end.
As for the Ebola epidemic, it has once more highlighted the weakness of health systems in very low income countries, and notably in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea Conakry. In fighting Ebola, we need to maintain public health provision in settings where health facilities are in a state of crisis and accept that the isolation and treatment of patients with Ebola, although essential, must be accompanied by prevention, health education, contact tracing and health systems support so that other pathologies can still be managed. Working in health centres on the outskirts of Monrovia, Médecins du Monde have been running training sessions for health workers to explain the process of the disease. We have also been delivering materials and equipment to ensure that the universal hygiene regulations can actually be applied. Médicos del Mundo España have carried out the same actions in Sierra Leone. Our teams in Ivory Coast are working hand-in-hand with the Ministry of Health to help prepare for a potential spread of the virus, especially in the San Pedro area where we support 125 health posts. This Ebola outbreak teaches us humility: our African colleagues have paid by far the heaviest price in this fight. Let’s not forget that!
Caring for those who the world is gradually forgetting means staying on in DRC, Haiti, Colombia and Somalia… because we know that the scars of conflicts and crises do not fade when the media spotlight moves off them.
Given the growing needs of the populations and in light of Médecins du Monde’s social mission, it our responsibility to contribute our share of solidarity. We have therefore decided to continue opening projects in response to emergency situations. And we will be maintaining our activities on our “long-term” missions. These proactive choices have the support of the entire Board of Directors and are coherent with the findings made and the demands formulated by our field actors abroad. Therefore, for the second year running, we have decided to adopt a pro-growth budget of around €90 million. This decision now means giving headquarters the resources to consolidate growth and fluidify working conditions. It is our duty to ensure the implementation of quality programmes by adapting our human resources to our growth and maintaining the dynamics of our associative model. And I would like to take this opportunity to thank all our colleagues in the France sector and in the International sector, all those present in the field and the members of our delegations, as well as everyone at headquarters for their commitment to fulfilling this social mission.
In France, as elsewhere, our field teams are working on the front line with extremely poor populations whose situation is getting worse by the day. We never cease to express our outrage at their plight. We lobby the authorities constantly about regressive legislation, as we have shown there to be solutions: health care mediation, socio-medical consultation, domiciliation for benefit entitlements, support, accommodation and re-housing with social follow-up, and prevention
Evacuations of insecure housing and shanty towns inhabited by already vulnerable populations, insufficient means for receiving asylum seekers in a dignified manner, provision of accommodation for homeless people decided by the thermometer, the non-merger of the AME (State Medical Assistance) with the CMU (Universal Healthcare Coverage) and insufficient political courage simply to open a supervised injection room are all proof that the current government is not up to addressing the challenges of exclusion and poverty. Furthermore, populist overkill on the part of some politicians is eating away at the foundations of our values at a time of tension largely due to the employment crisis.
Tomorrow we will need to be even stronger, more militant than ever in order to contend with those who seek an inward-looking Europe and are making a migrants’ cemetery of the Mediterranean, and those who see the relegation of a section of our society as unpreventable.
Joined together as members of Médecins du Monde, we are endeavouring to give a voice to solidarity, to health care for all and to social justice. Associated and yet different, and preserving our cohesion, we must show ourselves capable of accompanying change that will lead to the universal health we so want to see.
Therefore it is my belief that in constructing our associative project we should be looking to redefine the contours of our association, while continuing to pursue the fundamental principles (health for all, social justice, activism, independence, looking for the right path) that underpin our identity as an organisation that provides care, bears witness, advocates for and accompanies social change. During the Autumn University, Médecins du Monde’s managers discussed and amended a draft version of this project proposed by the steering group and the result of a long participatory process involving all the different sectors of our organisation. It is a wager on the future built on shared governance, a more balanced Doctors of the World international network and strong political alliances. It is in this spirit that I will be presenting the 2015-2025 associative project at our General Assembly meeting on 30 May 2015, if the National Consultative Committee gives it the green light in March 2015.
This project, if approved by the association, will then need to be transformed into political and strategic orientations. In the Board’s 2014/2015 road map, ways forward have already been identified. Drawing on the workings of all the different groups which constitute the wealth of our associative model, we will work together to develop a multi-annual strategic plan that must enable us to chart the way ahead without stifling the collective creativity that is the lifeblood of our organisation. Over the three years that I have chaired our association, I have seen it grow in know-how, in mobilisation and in independence. We need to continue down this path of internal democracy that enables us to invent humanitarian actions closer to the needs of the populations, forming a chain of solidarity in support of more human dignity.
To conclude, I would once more like to wish you much happiness in 2015, with and within an association of Médecins du Monde pursuing the goal of health care for all and social justice.
Thierry Brigaud
PD : Thank you to relay this message so as much as possible to share it with all the stakeholders of the association. In addition, you will find in the intranet the associative project which we are still working. Feel free to send me your comments.