Doctors Without Borders and The World Food Program by Ariel Kaylor

Ariel Kaylor

Tuesday morning I woke up, got dressed, and hustled out of Hotel de Geneva running just a little late. The group was groggy and tired from all of the amazing things we did the day before.

Dr. Shratter looked at Dr. Schmied, and asked “Do you want to walk or ride the tram?”

Dr. Schmied “It does not matter to me”

Schratter “Well, you know me. I’ll walk all day.”

So… guess what… we walked for 20 minutes on the VERY VERY windy and cold morning of March 20th in Geneva, Switzerland. We were all bundled up and excited to hear about the amazing things Doctors Without Borders is doing all over the world. When we arrived at the building, we were greeted by a Myriam Haskell who is the Assistant Director of Communications, as well as an Assistant Coordinator of Fundraising, at Doctors Without Borders Geneva. Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) is the International Name for the organization, and is the prefered name for non-english speaking countries. MSF was founded on December 20, 1971 in Paris, France and operates currently in 88 countries. Myriam had a presentation and video that covered all of the life changing humanitarian actions they are conducting and taking part in. It was eye opening to see the projects they are working on and get a visual of what their lives look like on a daily basis.

After the lecture, we split off into groups, with my group heading to Saint Pierre Cathedral to climb to the top of the North and South towers. We could see the whole city of Geneva and it was breathtaking. We got a little lost on the way (but who doesn’t), and found the life size chess boards and pieces. We climbed over 150 stairs to get to the top of the Cathedral and the wind was so strong, but it was 100% worth every cringing leg muscle. We grabbed some lunch at a burger place before heading back to meet back up with the rest of the group for our lecture with World Food Program.

Geneva view from atop of the tower at St. Piere Cathedral (photo by Stephen Prinzo)

Geneva view from atop of the tower at St. Piere Cathedral (photo by Ariel)

Modern Game of Chess (photo by Dave Peters)

St. Piere Cathedral (photo by Dave Peters)

The World Food Program building was under heavy security, so we went through two locked doors, up elevators, and then we each had to enter a spaceship looking clear tube, that opened one way to the rest of the building and another way into the office of the World Food Program. We met a fantastic woman named Bettina Luescher, who presented on what the WFP does overall for the hungry people of the world.. The most interesting fact was, that they are the largest aid organization in the world, they aid over 80 countries. She explained to us how their operations work; for example, in Syria they learned how to drop food across a wide region from a plane, instead of one specific place, because the Syrian officials would not let them aid the people in need. Bettina talked about their efforts in Yemen, and referenced how “hunger is a weapon of war” because people will do just about anything they have to so they can feed themselves and their families. Bettina was one of the coolest people I have ever met and she has so much life experience, she has traveled all over the world to help those in need, she is a retired news anchor for CNN.