Photo
Conference

How to improve access to care and aid for people living with a handicap in a humanitarian context?

Benoit
Finck

Benoit Finck, a documentary maker for French television (France 5, Arte, France 3), has been making films for more than 20 years for the communication of MSF.

The Crash team was pleased to invite you to the screening-debate of the film Agir contre l'exclusion, on April 7, 2022. The event was prepared and moderated by Elba Rahmouni.

The debate was translated simultaneously into sign language and English. The film, shown as a preview, has been cut from the video: it is available in replay on the France 5 website.

Doctor Jean Dragon, who wrote Les silencieux. Chroniques de vingt ans de médecine avec les sourds (2008),The silent. Chronicles of twenty years of humanitarian medicine with the deaf  was the first one to open, in 1995, a reception service in sign language in a hospital in Paris. At that time, in the middle of a HIV pandemic, the health authorities noticed how badly the deaf were isolated. According to Jean Dragon, “deaf people were dying from Aids because they had to call members of their family to translate during consultations. Therefore, they preferred not to see doctors. Or when they saw them and learned their diagnosis, they did not know what Aids was.”https://www.sourds.net/2011/01/10/la-langue-des-signes-veut-entrer-a-lhopital/ The exclusion from medical care because of a handicap is a phenomenon that can also be found in humanitarian assistance programs. This problem is even more worrying when we consider that around 15% of the 80 million refugees in the world suffer from a handicap.https://handicap-international.fr/fr/actualites/camps-de-refugies-n-oublions-pas-les-personnes-handicapees

Louise Limela is the Coordinator and Facilitator of the OCB association network for Médecins sans Frontières in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In 2020, she tried to understand to what extent the inhabitants of Kinshasa were informed about the Covid-19 pandemic. She noticed that several groups were excluded because of a lack of information: persons with reduced mobility, the visually impaired, the deaf, people with albinism, widows, and orphans. Louise Limela then started to work with local associations of people with disabilities to train “peer educators”: members of these organisations who were able to reach these persons. As a result of the success of this work and in response to the requests of the beneficiaries she extended her training activities to HIV prevention and family planning. Before the end of 2022, MSF WACA (West & Central Africa) will take over this initiative with the purpose of extending it to its programs in Ituri and North Kivu.

The documentary Agir contre l’exclusion (26 minutes, Point du Jour producer) reports Louise Limela’s work with these groups, with a strong focus on deaf people. It was screened during this CRASH conference and followed by a debate: how to improve access to care and aid for people living with a handicap in a humanitarian context?

Opening:

  • Benoît Finck, the film director.

Debate, with the participation of:

  • Louise Limela, the Coordinator and Facilitator of the OCB association network in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
  • Patrice Vastel, Coordinator of the international project on the inclusion of people with disabilities at MSF.
  • Gregory Keane, Psychiatrist and Mental Health Advisor at MSF.
  • Guillaume Le Gallais, director of the I.P.I.D.V. (Initiatives Pour l'Inclusion des Déficients Visuels),Initiatives for the inclusion of the visually impairedformer Operations Director and board member of MSF.

The documentary was broadcast on RTS (April 23th) and France 5 (L'oeil et la main documentary collection, April 25th).

To cite this content :
Benoit Finck, “How to improve access to care and aid for people living with a handicap in a humanitarian context?”, 7 avril 2022, URL : https://msf-crash.org/en/conferences-debates/how-improve-access-care-and-aid-people-living-handicap-humanitarian-context

If you would like to comment on this article, you can find us on social media or contact us here:

Contribute

Past events

image conférence reconstructing lives Conference

Reconstructing Lives

02/17/2022 - 06:30 PM 08:30 PM Vanja Kovacic

The members of the Crash team were happy to welcome you all to an conference-debate with anthropologist Vanja Kovačič, on Thursday 17th of February. The author introduced her recently-published book "Reconstructing lives Victims of war in the Middle East and Médecins Sans Frontières" (Manchester University Press, translated in French and Arabic). This event, prepared with Jean-Hervé Bradol, was moderated by Michaël Neuman.  

Read more
conv yves clot Conference

Another approach to well-being at work

12/09/2021 - 06:30 PM 08:30 PM Yves Clot Jean-Yves Bonnefond

The members of the Crash were very happy to welcome you all to this conference-debate with occupational psychologists Yves Clot and Jean-Yves Bonnefond, two of the authors of “Le prix du travail bien fait – La coopération conflictuelle dans les organisations” (Paris, La Découverte, 2021 ; co-written with Antoine Bonnemain and Mylène Zittoun). This event, prepared with Judith Soussan, was moderated by Clément Perrin.

Read more
conf violences extrêmes msf Conference

Book launch event - Violences extrêmes. Enquêter, secourir, juger République démocratique du Congo, Rwanda, Syrie

11/17/2021 - 06:30 PM 08:30 PM Jean-Hervé Bradol Claudine Vidal

We were happy to welcome Claudine Vidal, sociologist (CNRS) and Crash scientific committee member, and Jean-Hervé Bradol, doctor, former President of the French section of MSF and current director studies at the Crash, for the launching event of the newly-published book “Violences extrêmes. Enquêter, secourir, juger République démocratique du Congo, Rwanda, Syrie” (Éditions de la Maison des sciences de l’homme, Paris 2021). The event was hosted by Rony Brauman.

Read more
conf 50 ans Conference

Round Table - 50 years of Doctors without borders (Médecins sans frontières)

11/03/2021 - 07:30 PM 09:00 PM

Médecins Sans Frontières celebrated its 50th anniversary. On this occasion and in the framework of the International Humanitarian Studies Association (IHSA) conference, the Crash organized a Round Table on the history of the organization, the myths surrounding it, and its recent evolution. This meeting, prepared with Elba Rahmouni, was moderated by Bertrand Taithe.

Read more
conf karen Conference

Asylum and exile. A history of the distinction between migrants / refugees

04/12/2021 - 06:30 PM 08:30 PM Karen Akoka

On April 12 2021, we were delighted to welcome Karen Akoka, political scientist and sociologist, fresh from her publication in November of “Asylum and Exile. A History of the Refugee/Migrant Distinction" (La Découverte, 2020). The author described and analyzed the trajectory of OFPRA, the French institution founded in 1952 and responsible for granting refugee status; she provided an insight into how the history of the distinction between migrants and refugees was established in France. This conference was prepared and moderated by Michaël Neuman.

Read more
conf joel glasman Conference

The quantification of needs

12/10/2020 - 06:00 PM 08:00 PM Joël Glasman

Combining historical research and ethnographic investigations, the Africanist historian Joël Glasman plunges us into the factory of the homo humanitarianus, the average individual, on the basis of which "needs" and aid projects today are assessed. This conversation took place on December 10th 2020, during a conference-debate at Crash prepared and moderated by Michaël Neuman.

Read more