Last November, Typhoon Haiyan, a powerful tropical cyclone devastated portions of Southeast Asia, particularly the Philippines.
When cataclysmic events such as this happen, many organizations are dispatched to these areas to provide medical treatment and aid.
Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders is one such group providing help. Brett Davis, an aid worker for Doctors Without Borders recently returned from the Philippines.
Davis was there for about eight weeks and says Doctors Without Borders still has ongoing activities in the Philippines.
Since 2004 he has done work in Sudan, Darfur, Ethiopia, Nigeria and Haiti.
Davis says that there are some common challenges that the organization faces, but every area has unique challenges.
“Some of the challenges we find are just being faced with such large scale destruction such as the typhoon, or dealing with displacement as a result of conflict or dealing with malnutrition. We all have to figure out how we can be the most effective, how we can ensure that what we’re doing has the desired impact that we wanted to have in the end,” Davis said.
