The international non-profit organisation Doctors Without Borders (MSF) organised its first-ever art auction to collect donations for people in need.
Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, many non-profit organisations have recorded large rises in donations. Doctors Without Borders (Médecins sans Frontières) has also received record-breaking amounts over the last couple of weeks, with donations more than doubling since the Russian invasion.
Dr Christos Christou, the international president of MSF, was in Luxembourg over the weekend to participate in a special fund-raiser. At Bank Degroof Petercam, the works of 19 artists were auctioned off, with all proceeds going to the non-profit organisation.
Dr Christou provided insight into the nature of the event: "This is the first art auction that has ever been organised for MSF. We are very excited to see the results." The organisation will use the profits to finance its missions all across the world.
The MSF president also stressed that the organisation conducts countless missions aside from being active in Ukraine: "There are similar crises with comparable patterns all over the world. We try to gently remind people that other conflicts are just as serious. They also happen in Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, and Iraq, only to name a few."
MSF currently employs 135 people who have been deployed to work in Ukraine. They cooperate with about 200 local recruits, which is not as many as the organisation usually has on the ground in a crisis region. For instance, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, MSF recruited 3,000 locals for their mission.
