Medico International

[7] Founded in 2004, the Medico International Foundation supports activities with earnings and engages in debates, congresses and symposia.

Famous members of the board of trustees are the German cabaret artist Georg Schramm as well as the former Hessian minister Rupert von Plottnitz.

Originally founded to organize a collection of medicines for Biafra, this was soon followed by the dispatch of personnel and vehicles to disaster areas.

The experience with this type of aid led medico to rethink its approach: in order to achieve lasting improvements, the causes of need and poverty should be given greater attention.

Following its definition of health as comprehensive well-being Medico works together not only with health organizations but with political/cultural groups like Palestinian Freedom Theatre Jenin, and the Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (GALZ), an organization fighting for rights for sexual minorities in Zimbabwe.

Medico informs mainly through its homepage https://www.medico.de/en/, its newsletter and its quarterly German publication ‘rundschreiben’.

[10] In 1991 Medico and the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation launched an international campaign against land mines.

In 2014 Medico together with the presidents of the German unions Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund and the IG Metall and ver.di launched a campaign called ‘untragbar’ (unbearable/unwearabe) in support of textile workers in southeast asia.

Apart from the campaign Medico and the European Center for Constitutional Human Rights supported a lawsuit of four suvivours against the German textile company KiK.