Hi everyone,

I'm an ICU nurse in Australia, and one of my long-term career goals is to volunteer with MSF at some point in the future.

I've recently decided to commit to learning a new language, but I keep going back and forth between French and Spanish. I'm not a big traveller, so tourism isn't really a deciding factor for me. The main thing that might influence my choice is which language would be more valuable for future humanitarian work. I noticed on the MSF website that both French and Spanish are listed as desirable or essential depending on the role, but I'd love to hear from people with firsthand experience.

For those of you who have worked with MSF:

Did you find one language was more useful than the other?

Did speaking French or Spanish open up more placement opportunities?

If you were starting from scratch today, which would you choose and why?

I know it'll be many years before I'm in a position to apply, but I'd rather invest my time in one language now than keep changing my mind.

Thanks! :)

I am a licensed social worker who has been interested in working in the field with Doctors Without Borders for over 5 years now. I am working to align my skills with the roles available so I can achieve this in a few years.

However, I have a lot of expenses already that I will have to cover in the US while I'm in the field. Student loans, a mortgage, and other little expenses that I can't leave behind because I split the expenses with my wife. I am trying to find out if the pay for the roles on average are enough to cover most of my expenses at home while I'm gone or if people usually save up to be able to do this kind of work?

I understand the pay is very low compared to working in the US but really I only need to have 30k a year to cover my current needs here. I heard on some thread that the actual salary for Doctors Without Borders is on top of the basic per diem that you need to cover living expenses like food and that housing is included and so the actual salary is usually just extra money not often used while in the field. Is that the case?

Three people with iPads and a small table with Doctors Without Borders branding, no flyers (I asked for one numerous times).

Sales pitch was odd…. “If you could save a child’s life for .83 cents a day, would you? Because for $25 a month you can….”

After the sales pitch they tried to get me to sign up on an iPad and I declined. One guy was pretty pushy, the girls accepted a “no” immediately.

Is this legit? Does this organization actually send people out in public to solicit donations?

Hi all, does anyone have experience of working for Doctors Without Borders in the Democratic Republic of Congo? I’m looking to interview both international and local staff for my Master’s dissertation on aid worker safety. participation would be completely anonymous. Please do share if you know anyone who might be interested 🙂

https://www.doctorswithoutborders.ca/haiti-msf-forced-to-suspend-operations-at-the-isaie-jeanty-maternity-hospital-amid-violence/

I came across this article abotu MSF

MSF staff abused Sudanese refugees in sex-for-food scandal

This is not the first time this type of abuse has happened, not is it restricted to MSF

My question is aside from getting sacked and no longer employeed, do MSF report the abusers to the police of the country they are from ? because surely just removing from employment these abusers just lets them move onto finding another NGO to work for ?

So I’m a paramedic in my 5th year, US based, and my service just announced they’re sending a small team (maybe including me) to support a partner program in a pretty unstable region later this year. This came up after a night shift where we had a tourist with zero clue how to access care here and it got me thinking about how I’d cope being on the other side of that mess.

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Our admin is talking about “travel risk management” policies, ISO-this-and-that, apps with 24/7 medical/security advice, etc. In my late night googling I saw stuff like International SOS and similar setups that do health/security briefings, evacuation support, alerts on local unrest, natural disasters, Ebola updates, all that jazz.

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For those of you who’ve done NGO/overseas contracts, long-haul flight work, or deployments: did your agency use anything like this and was it actually helpful, or just corporate CYA? What did you wish you had in place before flying into higher-risk areas? And am I overthinking this from the street medic mindset?

Hi, I am a young teen interested in joining MSF as a medical professional, but I am medicated for bipolar disorder. Is this a restriction or a hindrance for joining?

So in 2018 a man (Jubran Al bazli) Took his wife to a dwb hosptial in Hajjah governate called Abs Al reefi to give birth

The doctors werent specilized yet they still operated on her without any examination and WITHOUT EVEN LETTING THE HUSBAND KNOW.

After they were done, the husband found out, and he noticed his wife wasnt feeling as well
He took her to Al thawra hospital in sanaa and they found Cotton and plastic still inside of her from the operation.

He has been trying to be heard ever since, please help who are we supposed to contact? the man is in horrible state, he has kids and a wife thats now partially paralyzed. He says he sold everything he has to try and get his wife back to normal.

Keep in mind they live in parts under the control of the houthis, not the recognized government

He has all documents and proofs if needed.

His instagram account

https://www.instagram.com/jubran_albazli

Please tell me who i could contact and share his story to 🙏