Boris Martin
Éditions Médecins du Monde, 2020
[Published in French]
Publisher’s note
2020 marks Médecins du Monde’s 40th anniversary. The age of maturity, perhaps, and above all the occasion to go back to the founding principles of the association, to review the memorable episodes of its history and to highlight the key elements of its action, which were stated four decades ago.
“To go where others will not, to testify to the intolerable, and to volunteer”. Such was the declaration of faith contained in the “oath of equals”, signed by forty-three people one day in 1980 in an amphitheatre in the Broussais hospital in Paris. The assembly, which included Biafran veterans, disillusioned members of Médecins Sans Frontières, the young guard from the Île de lumière operation in the South China Sea, doctors, journalists and photographers, gave rise to a newcomer in the little family of French humanitarian aid. A mix of militant determinism, triumphant enthusiasm and good-natured improvisation: Médecins du Monde (Doctors of the World) was born.
The author is the Editor-in-Chief of the Humanitarian Alternatives review.
Translated from the French by Juliet Powys
