From the Downtown Happenings email provided by Houston Downtown:
Every day people around the world, often women and children, are displaced by war and violence. Learn firsthand how these 33 million refugees struggle to meet their most basic needs when Doctors Without Borders / Médecins Sans Frontières creates its outdoor interactive educational exhibit in Houston’s center.
A Refugee Camp in the Heart of the City will be set up on Fish Plaza in front of the Wortham Theater Center starting Thursday, October 4 through Sunday, October 7. In addition, KHOU-Channel 11 anchor Greg Hurst will lead an insightful discussion in the Grand Foyer of Wortham Center on Thursday, October 4 at 7 p.m.
Led by experienced aid workers, visitors to the 8,000-square-foot exhibit will be asked to imagine that they are among the millions of people fleeing violence and persecution in countries such as Afghanistan, Colombia and Sudan.
The exhibit, which is free and open to the public from 9 a.m.-5:30 p.m. daily, is made up of materials used by MSF in its emergency medical work around the world, including refugee housing, a food distribution tent, water pump, health clinic, vaccination tent, therapeutic feeding center and a cholera treatment center.
Guides will share their personal experiences while explaining the challenges of building shelter, finding food and clean water and handling waste disposal – the basic elements of survival for those who have lost everything.
“Tens of millions of people throughout the world today are uprooted from their homes, on the run, fleeing violence, living under the most grueling conditions,” said Nicolas de Torrenté, executive director of Doctors Without Borders-USA. “By presenting some of the daily challenges faced by displaced people – how they get clean water, enough food, adequate shelter, and basic medical care, often in a climate of fear and uncertainty about their future, we hope the exhibit will raise public awareness and action.”