Erwin van't Land

Erwin van't Land is a journalist and worked as a correspondent for Dutch media in Northern Ireland. In 1995 he joined MSF as Head of Communications in Amsterdam and came to Sydney in 1998. In mid 1999 he was an emergency press officer in Macedonia and Kosovo. He is currently Director of Communications of MSF in Sydney.

Emergencies come in many shapes and sizes. Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF, also known as Doctors without Borders) specialises in emergencies that affect hundreds of thousands. Its teams of doctors, nurses and technical staff provide medical assistance in over eighty countries at any given time. For that work, and for the principled approach of the organisation, MSF was rewarded last year’s Nobel Peace Prize.

Volunteers

“In Uganda, the merest gesture was lifesaving: rehydrading a child or giving it a course of antibiotics,” says Doctor Peter Hakewill about his first mission with MSF. “The first week I arrived, the doctor whom I was replacing went, and I realised I was the only doctor in the whole district. It was just me. I remember feeling awed by that responsibility.” After a number of assignments with the organisation, Dr Hakewill stood at the crib of the Australian branch of MSF, founded some five years ago. He still saves up holidays to help out in emergencies and in the last two years he found himself in flood-stricken Bangladesh and ruined East Timor.

Last year, 68 volunteers from Australia and New Zealand went overseas on 77 assignments with MSF. About one-third of them are doctors, one-third has a paramedical background, and one-third is non-medical. Internationally, through its network of 18 offices, MSF sends out some 2,500 volunteers per year. In addition, in the project countries the organisation employs well over 10,000 staff locally.

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