Médecins Sans Frontières - The Captain of Dignity I (INT)

Unique Identifier Code / URN MSF218021

Date taken / Date Recorded 06/10/2015 12:00 AM

Country Mediterranean Sea, Spain

Commissioning section MSF-SPAIN

Photographer / videographer / producer Marta Soszynska

Copyright Marta Soszynska/MSF

Usage Rights (MSF) Internal Use Only

Formal Consent Copy available no

Editor's rating ★★★★★★ (B)

Video format h264 (Main) (avc1 / 0x31637661)

Duration 2m45s

Maximum Size 1920px × 1080px 201.54 MB

Additional Information / Shotlist La Capitana, Script

The state or quality of being worthy of honour.

I am Madeleine Habib from Australia and I am the captain of Dignity I, the MSF Mediterranean rescue vessel.

Migration is something I hold very close to my heart. My father migrated from Egypt to the UK in 1960s.
And then when we wanted a better life we migrated to Australia.

If you have to leave your home because you are threatened or because there is no hope, than you should be able to travel safely. And that´s something I hold very close to my heart.

As capitain I have an overall responsability of the vessel, working together with the field coordinator from MSF to make sure that we can carry out our rescue missions.

I am hugely impressed that MSF would have the vision to buy a ship and to start this kind of operation. It is very difficult to do these operations and the possiblity for something to go wrong is very real.

We are giving hope and a voice and a face to these people, we are saving their lives, we are preventing them from drowning at sea, there is no doubt about that. Its a real need.

Being on board of Dignity I is empowering.
Going into what we call the “women´s area” on board and seeing these young girls, and just sitting with them and hearing a little bit about their stories and knowing that at least for the short time that they are on board of the ship, they are treated with dignity…

The ship, before it was bought by MSF was called Furore G. And Furore or furor in English is like an outcry about something that´s so outrageous that it causes a public uproar and that´s very much what has happened here is there is a furor about migration, and we need to be a part of it.

MSF has changed the name of the ship to Dignity and it means the state or quality of being worthy of honour.
And I think that´s such an important part of being a humanitarian, is to give people that dignity, and being a humanitarian is much more than just giving people medicine, it´s recognizing everybody as an individual, with a story, with a life, with a right to a future.