Artze fur die Dritte Welt
February 4, 2010
http://www.aerzte-dritte-welt.de/test/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=111&Itemid=1
GERMANY -- Father Bernhard Ehlen SJ was born on 5 March 1939 in Berlin. In 1958 he became a Jesuit monk. As part of his education within the order he studied philosophy, theology and educational science, and was ordained as a priest in 1968.
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| Father Bernhar Ehlen SJ, June 1993 |
In the following years he was active in Roman Catholic youth work. Constantly confronted in this work with young people's questions about the reasons for unfairness in the world, and with their search for ways of doing something about it, he joined the Cap Anamur committee in 1981 and worked as a project coordinator in refugee camps in Somalia. There Father Bernhard Ehlen made the fundamental realisation that a doctor can help someone who is ill and suffering anywhere in the world, often even with little funding, and independent of his/her knowledge of languages or cultural background.
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| Father Ehlen in the Mathare-Valley slum, Kenya. (May 2005) |
He combined this realisation with the fact that he knew many doctors were looking for ways to make a commitment without having to leave their practice, the everyday life of the clinic and family life for six months or longer. In this way the idea for the 'Ärzte für die Dritte Welt' [Doctors for Developing Countries] committee was born. It brings established facilities and employees in the area together with German doctors. They succeed each other in short assignments lasting six weeks, with the aim of helping people in the Third World, who would otherwise never see a doctor. The organisation was set up in Darmstadt on 10 September 1983, at a meeting of ten doctors.
Since then, Father Ehlen has been working voluntarily as director of 'Doctors for Developing Countries', after his order released him for this work in the spirit of the Ignatian 'Option for the Poor'. Since 1986 he has been a member of the four-person management board at 'Doctors for Developing Countries'. Under his management, 'Doctors for Developing Countries' has grown from its first beginnings in very humble conditions in Calcutta and Manila into a well-known and respected humanitarian aid organisation, one which currently sends more than 300 doctors per year to the present nine projects in India, Bangladesh, Kenya, Nicaragua and the Philippines, bringing medical help to around 3,000 patients every day from the poorest of the poor worldwide.
On 17 June 1999 Father Ehlen was made an honorary doctor of the Medical Faculty of the University of Graz for his services as founder and director of 'Doctors for Developing Countries'. At the end of June 2006, after 23 years of untiring commitment in the service of 'Doctors for Developing Countries', Father Dr Bernhard Ehlen SJ handed over the running of the organisation to his successor, in order to take some time out in a so-called sabbatical. Once this 'break' is over, he will continue to use his experience and contacts to support the 'Doctors for Developing Countries' committee.
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