2007 Moonbeam Children's Book Awards:
- Bronze Medalist, Young Adult Non-Fiction Category, and
- Bronze Medalist, Peacemaker Award Category
ForeWord Magazine's Book of the Year Awards Gold Medal winner (YA Non-Fiction category), 2007
CCBC's Best Books for Kids & Teens, 2008 «Starred Choice
Red Maple Book Award - Non-Fiction nominee 2009
Excerpt:
"When I tell friends at home in Canada abut the things I have seen, they often say, 'It must be so depressing!' But my work has never felt depressing. Doctors Without Borders is an organization built to act, to make things better. Together with other volunteers and the support of millions of people around the world, we don’t have to sit by helplessly and see a disaster unfold before us, wondering what on earth we can do. The gift of action is ours."
When children are caught in civil wars, when earthquakes destroy homes and villages, when AIDS and other diseases shatter families and communities - the volunteers of Doctors Without Borders are there. Their mission is simple - to bring life-saving care to the world's neediest people and to speak out when the rights of the people in their care are abused or violated.
Médecins Sans Frontières, known in English as Doctors Without Borders and by its volunteers as MSF, is the world’s largest independent medical humanitarian relief organization. Every year, more than 3,000 MSF volunteers and 12,000 local men and women bring medical aid to people in more than 70 countries.
In Healing Our World, David Morley presents his own story and the stories of other MSFers who have volunteered in some of the most dangerous and forgotten corners of the world - the Congo, El Salvador, Chechnya, Bangladesh, Mozambique, Afghanistan, southern Africa. These are stories about healing and helping people, about making the world a better place - stories filled with sorrow and hope, anger and idealism, determination and passion.
- The words and experiences - good and bad - of MSF volunteers who come from all over the world and every walk of life.
- Information about MSF's history, how it selects its volunteers and decides where to send them.
- Includes photographs from the field.
Visit the Médecins Sans Frontières' Canadian web site at www.msf.ca.
Reviews:
"This is an excellent, timely, and relevant account of the work of Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders by the executive director of MSF Canada from 1998 to 2005. . . The easy-to-read text is accompanied by black-and-white photos that show the humanity and the intense severity of the conditions described. This fascinating volume will introduce readers to a dedicated organization that gives people who live in forgotten places 'evidence that someone actually cares.' "
-- School Library Journal Starred Review
"Morley fulfils his objective to let students know how the organization works, where it goes on missions, what it does there, and about the lives of the people the organization seeks to help. . . He does not gloss over the challenges but leaves the reader with a hopeful sense that individuals can get involved and help to make the world a better place."
Recommended.
-- CM Magazine
"In this admirable book about the aid agency Doctors Without Borders - called in Canada by its French name, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) - David Morley presents a clear, realistic picture of people working under extremely difficult circumstances to provide medical and other help where it is most desperately needed. . . Healing Our World is an inspiring book that could well change the lives of some readers."
-- Quill & Quire
"Teens with an active social conscience and an interest in humanitarian causes will be inspired when reading this book. The accounts of MSF volunteers who have worked in the field are particularly fascinating and heighten the interest of the book."
-- VOYA Book Review
"David Morley's Healing Our World: Inside Doctors Without Borders is as fine a way as any to give teenagers a sense of what's possible out there in the world of disease and poverty. . . this is a very practical book, one to kindle the interest not just of young activists, but of any teens leaning toward a career in health services."
-- Toronto Star
"Profoundly moving"
-- The Globe and Mail
For seven years, David Morley served as the Executive Director of the Canadian section of Doctors Without Borders. His work took him to refugee camps in the rebel-held areas of Congo, to earthquake-shattered villages in El Salvador, to the simple huts of destitute AIDS patients in Zambia.
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