Plantage Middenlaan 14 1018 DD Amsterdam
Tel	:	0900-821 22 12 (10 ct/pm)
Fax	:	020-62 05 170
Email	:	info@amsterdam.msf.org
Web	:	www.artsenzondergrenzen.nl

MSF-Holland brings emergency medical assistance to victims of war, conflict and disasters all over the world. We aim, in particular, to provide aid where it is needed most.

Emergency medical assistance is more than just treating patients. For example, MSF also rebuilds disused or demolished hospitals and clinics and organise proper water supplies and sanitation to prevent disease. Meantime, MSF is also increasingly engaging in medical research and developing and implementing protocols for the effective treatment of, amongst others, kala azar, HIV/aids, tuberculosis and malaria.

An MSF-Holland aid programme will consist of some of the following activities depending on the situational needs:

• Basic healthcare
• Nutritional programmes
• Mother and child care
• Psycho-social care
• Disease prevention
• Emergency surgery
• Research
• Water and sanitation facilities
• Emergency preparedness and management

Witnessing and Advocacy is an integrated part of every MSF project. MSF regards it as its duty not only to provide medical assistance but also to work closely with people in crisis and bear witness to their suffering and the abuses they endure. If and when MSF observes systematic or repetitive human rights abuses and violations of humanitarian law, they seek to make this known to the local and international authorities. At times, MSF uses the press to make these abuses known to the larger public and to point out the responsibilities of local and international actors.

Every year MSF-Holland sends hundreds of workers to the field. All these people play an active role in realising the goal of MSF-Holland: to provide medical and humanitarian aid to victims of war, conflict and disasters.
Although not working in India at the time, MSF was granted the prestigious 1996 Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development for its overall humanitarian action worldwide. This opened the doors for MSF to launch a programme in India. In 1998 an exploratory mission was carried out to assess the health situation in India and identify the more acute health needs. MSF has been in India since 1999.

Since then MSF has participated in several programmes and actively supported and gave aid to the victims of natural disaster like the Gujarat earthquake and the tidal wave. In Tamil Nadu MSF-Nederland trained medical students to identify disaster victims with a medical or phycological problem so that they can get the necessary assistance.