Liv Fünfgeld (UWC Adriatic, 1984-1986) is a General Practitioner and a specialist in musculoskeletal medicine, chiropractic and osteopathy, working at her own surgery in her home country, Germany. Last year, she was nominated "citizen of the year" in her town Cottbus, in recognition of her initiative to become the local point of reference for all medical care for refugees in the city. This year, she received a special recognition from the Ministry for European Affairs for her engagement in the refugee crises, and she is now about to leave for Turkey to volunteer with MedVint (Medical Volunteers International), to provide medical help and basic care to refugees.

Here is her story and her call for action for anyone who can help by donating money, time, language skills, or anything else.

“With the huge group of refugees arriving in Europe last year, nobody around could close his or her eyes anymore. Everyone had to take a stand, have an opinion, one way or another. With all the refugee aid popping up anywhere, I thought about what I could do best from a professional point of view and where my help could be most effective. Obviously this was within the medical field – first of all in my hometown of Cottbus.

Being aware of being “THE organized German”, I started organizing basic medical care for refugees within town, mediating between fellow doctors and town officials, organizing regular visits in the big gym hall, where refugees arrived first. Pretty soon I became the (voluntary) official person for organizing basic medical treatment in the town of Cottbus –  and I am still doing this  today. Surprisingly enough, what was needed most was just someone listening to problems, coordinating the different actors and taking decisions. Instead of continuing to talk about the problems, I persuaded busy colleagues to help out, connected asylum homes with doctors, advised the agency for social services which treatments are really necessary and need to be paid  for, started a vaccination program for unaccompanied minors and so on… It was doing – not talking: This has made  all the difference.

Having taken  the first step,  the next steps came  by themselves. Last autumn, the local branch of “International Society of Human Rights – IGFM” was looking for doctors to join them for a week to deliver wheelchairs, crutches, medicines etc. to handicapped children  in the Yezidi refugee camps in the Kurdish Region of North Iraq. I was asked to help, so, of course I joined and returned also a second time in the spring for teaching basic physiotherapy .  

Having been twice in the region, I could see what is needed there is mainly materials. Refugee aid is organized, there are not many doctors  but they are there to take care for the most basic needs. We did not do much more.

Through Annegret Berne (UWC Atlantic, 1984-1986), I got to know MedVint (Medical Volunteers International), a Facebook platform organizing medical volunteers and collecting funds for buying medicine. They started with a big wave of volunteer aid on Lesbos and Chios and have now moved their help to the greater Izmir area, where many refugees are stranded without any care at all and or perspective of moving to Greece. I shall join this tiny organization for about 10 days from the end of September.

With MedVint I will provide basic medical care to the poorest, those who lost everything and work on the fields for hardly any money (not enough to see any doctor at all). In order to do this, of course I will buy my own plane ticket, pay for my own food and, furthermore, I will need to buy and pay for most of the medicines we want to give out in Turkey. I am really bad at  fundraising, but while  I can pay for my needs in Turkey from my comfortable European self-employed upper middle class background, there are other younger colleagues, even medical students, helping out for longer periods with no funds to buy all the medicines that are needed for treating the patients. So all extra money I can bring there will go directly towards additional medicine, diapers, mosquito nets, clean water sets, boiling devices etc… on the ground. So, if anyone wants to help out, please consider donating using the following account:

Name: Praxis für Allgemein- und Manualmedizin Dr. Fünfgeld (GP surgery, Dr. Fuenfgeld)
IBAN: DE83120300001004574677, BIC BYLADEM1001
Purpose: MedVint Turkey

How has UWC influenced these decisions and my ability to help? Well, it would be lying to state that I learned about responsibility and service to the less fortunate only at UWC. I wanted to become a medical doctor before going to UWC, I was always around those who needed help and organizing for everyone also already before. I think this is why I got selected in the first place. What I really learned at UWC was to look beyond the clichés of nations and certain groups of people. To not only know intellectually, but to experience and feel the individuality of every single person regardless of their background. I have learned to fearlessly embrace differences, to try to understand the aim and meaning behind words, not to get trapped by culturally implicated meanings of certain expressions and not to judge before having tried to truly understand.

And I have used and continued to use use the pool of the UWC alumni group, where you find the most reliable and helpful people of all: for instance, with help of a Spanish Adriatic alumna Lucia Torres, I could send all the belongings of a Nigerian Schengen deported family of three from Cottbus to Madrid, and Lucia and friends helped them settle in.

With the help of another Spanish alumna and colleague Cristina Lagarón de Datshkovsky, we are trying to get a Yezidi 12 year-old girl with a giant artery malformation of the brain to Europe / Spain to get her operated on and to hopefully save her life.

UWC has not been the only driving factor of my work, but it has provided me with a unique platform to find likeminded people all around the world whom I trust immediately,  because I know about their education and most probable mindset about how humans should live together and help each other – this I am most grateful about. Thank you UWC!”