Last week Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres, the humanitarian medical organization, set up a refugee camp in the heart of Minneapolis, directly outside the window of my apartment building. The camp was designed to give people in the United Sates an idea of what it would be like to live inside a real refugee camp. Signs posted around tents and shacks ask the questions, ” How do I find water?” and “Can I get medical care?”
I spoke with Jennifer Vago, a registered nurse who has worked in refugee camps in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, and Sudan. She told me the program had been very successful, giving Americans an idea of what life is like for the 33 million refugees worldwide who live in camps like these. I’ve recorded an interview with her, and I’ll try to post that to the blog soon. — Bennett Gordon