A Refugee Camp in the Heart of the City.

• Position: Doctors Without Borders

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DOCTORS WITHOUT Borders is touring "A Refugee Camp in the Heart of the City," an interactive exhibit that asks the public to imagine they are among the 33,000,000 refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) worldwide who have been forced to flee their homes to seek refuge from war or conflict. Made up of actual materials used by Doctors Without Borders in their work all over the world, the 8,000 square-foot exhibit this month will be in Houston (Oct. 4-7) and Dallas (Oct. 11-14). In September, it visited Milwaukee, Chicago, and Minneapolis.

Experienced aid workers (physicians, nurses, and logisticians) act as exhibit guides, sharing their own experiences as well as explaining the challenges of building shelter, finding food and clean water, and handling waste disposal--all basic elements of survival for refugees and IDPs. In the nutrition tent, visitors learn about the special therapeutic foods used to combat malnutrition. Tours of the health clinic, vaccination tent, and cholera treatment center demonstrate how Doctors Without Borders provides basic health care and responds to epidemics in refugee settings. The exhibit highlights areas such as Iraq, Somalia, Chad, and Thailand, where millions of people currently are displaced by conflict.

"Tens of millions of people throughout the world today are uprooted from their homes, on the run, fleeing violence, living under the most grueling conditions," says Nicolas de Torrente, executive director of Doctors Without Borders-USA. "These vulnerable populations-especially the women and children among them who bear the worst burdens of displacement--shouldn't be forgotten.

"This exhibit tries to give visitors a chance to imagine what it is like to be one of the 33,000,000 people around the world made homeless by conflict and war.... By presenting some of the daily challenges faced by displaced people--how they get clean water, enough food, adequate shelter, and basic medical care, often in a climate of fear and uncertainty about their future, we hope the exhibit will raise public awareness and action."

Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres is an international independent medical humanitarian organization that delivers emergency aid to people affected by armed conflict, epidemics, natural and man-made disasters, and exclusion from health care in more than 70 countries and was awarded the 1999 Nobel Peace Prize.

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