1979 The Île de Lumière In 1978, somewhere on the South China Sea, a boat was drifting off course. On board were 2,564 Vietnamese refugees no country wanted to accept. In despair, they hoisted a banner which read: “We are threatened with hunger and epidemics. United Nations, save us!” A team of doctors – including Bernard Kouchner – intellectuals and journalists set off on a hospital ship, the Île de lumière, not only to provide medical assistance but also to bear witness to the plight of the boat people. On May 21st 1980, Médecins du Monde was born. The organisation set itself the threefold objective of going where others did not go, of bearing witness to the intolerable and of working on a voluntary basis. In the words of one of its founding doctors, the organisation was above all about “creating a structure ready to address emergency situations in the shortest possible timescale, something which is not always feasible for international institutions”.