Doctors Without Borders Founder to Speak at Delta College Wednesday Oct. 20

"Lessons From Abroad: Opportunities of a Borderless World," Topic of Speech

October 12, 2010
By: Dave Rogers

Dr. Richard Heinzl, co-founder of Doctors Without Borders, will discuss, "Lessons from Abroad: The Opportunities of a Borderless World," at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, October 20, in the Lecture Theater on the Delta College main campus.

His presentation is free and open to the public. It is part of the college's long-standing President's Speaker Series.

In 1988, just out of medical school, Richard Heinzl founded Doctors Without Borders Canada, the Nobel Prize-winning humanitarian organization. Shortly thereafter he became its first field volunteer, spending an extraordinary year in remote Cambodia. (These experiences are movingly captured in his new memoir, "Cambodia Calling.") Hundreds of volunteers have since followed in his footsteps, bringing their healing skills to help many of the world's most vulnerable people.

For his work, Heinzl has been named one of the "Hundred People Who Make a Difference in Canada," and was included on Report on Business' Top 40 Under 40 list. He is also a renowned speaker, sharing his stories of ordinary people doing extraordinary things in the midst of war and other challenges.

Covenant HealthCare in Saginaw, MidMichigan Health and St. Mary's of Michigan are supporting this Delta College President's Speaker Series appearance.

Doctors Without Borders is an international medical humanitarian organization created by doctors and journalists in France in 1971. Today, it provides aid in nearly 60 countries to people whose survival is threatened by violence, neglect or catastrophe, primarily due to armed conflict, epidemics, malnutrition, exclusion from health care, or natural disasters.

Doctors Without Borders, which received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999, provides independent, impartial assistance to those most in need.

For more information please contact Barb Handley-Miller, President's Speaker Series Committee Chair, 989-686-9000.

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