IPRAS

They must be confident. Security is one of the mostimportant things. We must not appear as arrogantcowboys invading the country, and giving orders. Ourrole is to do the job as well as we do at home, or better,although the conditions are often much more difficult,due to a precarious situation or a lack of modernmaterial. Of course, professionalism goes together withsafety… “Safety first” is one of the phrases that wemust keep in mind. A small number of operations withgood results and good functional outcome is alwaysbetter than many operated cases with bad or mediocreresults… bad results are always interpreted and felt asbad work or, sometimes, as a humiliation.PROVIDE AN ADAPTED HELP:Considering all these parameters… what can we do…?• Build or Rebuild and help them to work in goodconditions: very poor countries, often belonging tothe Islamic area, have rather seldom good hospitalaccommodations. There is often a lack of hospitals orsurgical wards, a lack of well trained surgeons, a lackof paramedics…A good occidental NGO must be aware of that.Therefore, it is important for them to restore or evento build specific wards for surgery. Reconstructivesurgery in particular is not well developed in thesecountries. Our goal must be to help them to get newbuildings. In Islamic countries we try to build or restorespecific departments where physically abused womenTeaching afghan women how to fold the gauzecan be treated. HumaniTerra, for instance, has built apilot burn center, in which women have a completelyseparate ward from the men, just as if we had buildtwo burn centers… Physical rehabilitation is also donein a specific area.We have also been the leaders and initiators of theHOT program (Herat Operating theatre, 6 verymodern operating rooms), together with the help of theJapanese and Italian cooperation. This allows womento be operated in conditions as good as the men…An adapted help is, to try to study what will fit the bestto a specific situation, integrating the Islamic laws andhabits… To women, treatment is given by women.• Prevent them from bad habits and help them to geta better life: are we allowed to change the rules…?Certainly not… just because we are foreigners thereis no reason why we should try to make new laws.Nothing is justifying the fact that democracy is betterfor countries that are used to live under tribal laws…why would we interfere…? And after all, is Islamcompatible with democracy…? This is a questiondifficult to answer, although Turkey, for instance, is agood example showing that it is possible… on the otherhand, the Islamic countries of the “Arabic Spring” (Libya, Tunisia, Egypt…) have also shown proof ofthat… but we still don’t know what the outcome willbe in a few months…However, even if we do not feel authorized to give themlessons in life, the role of a NGO is to try to induce abetter way of life, a better equity between women andmen, a more reasonable sharing of knowledge, anequal chance of happiness for everyone and dignity forevery human being.Towards this aim, we have set up several Campaigns forthe dignity of women. In Afghanistan Two campaignswere organized, in cooperation with the local NGO“Voice of Women”, in order to fight against thishorrible endemic disaster of women forced to commitsuicide by flame. During the first campaign, Lecturesand discussions were organized for Women and formen, separately, pointing out the unjustified reasonsof the crime, the expansive, long and painful treatmentand the horrible outcome with so many sequelae …after one year, the percentage of suicide by burn inthe Herat Province, decreased from 43% of the totalamount of burn patients to 11%... very good results,but still not sufficient.. A second campaign is currentlyunder way with TV videos and meeting, aimed at aneven larger amount of people.In Bangladesh, a campaign against acid attack isalso actually being set up, for the numerous womenattacked by jealous men…This type of action from the occidental NGOs must,however, not be too visible to the public, as this can30 IPRAS Journal www.ipras.org Issue 7