June 17, 2025
12:00PM-1:00PM ET
Event type: Live online
PAST EVENT
MSF Live from Mexico City: Providing medical care for migrants and asylum seekers on the move
Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) invites you for a virtual tour of our medical and mental health projects in Mexico City on Tuesday, June 17, at 12:00 pm ET.
Every year, hundreds of thousands of people risk their lives on the treacherous journey north through the Americas in hopes of reaching the southern US border. Along the way they are frequently exposed to extreme violence, extortion, and kidnapping. And increasingly restrictive US immigration policies have left many vulnerable people stranded in dangerous Mexican border cities without access to essential services, including health care.
Since 2017, MSF has been providing specialized multidisciplinary care to people who have experienced torture or extreme violence at our Comprehensive Care Center (CAI) in Mexico City. Many of the patients at this facility are migrants or asylum seekers who have experienced violence on their journeys. At the CAI, doctors, psychologists, social workers, and physical and occupational therapists help these people heal from trauma and connect them with the resources they need to adapt to their new lives in Mexico.
On this virtual tour, you will meet MSF's staff working at the CAI, including medical doctor Mercedes Alarcón, project coordinator Joaquim Guinart-Verdaguer, community health promoter Cassandra Melendez Oliva, and psychologist Isaac Torres. The event will be moderated by MSF USA's Chief Executive Officer Avril Benoît.
Join us to learn more about MSF's work and how teams are responding to growing challenges at Mexico's northern border.
Meet the speakers
Dr. Mercedes Alarcón
Dr. Mercedes Alarcón is a general practitioner at the CAI , providing medical and mental health services to survivors of violence. Throughout her career, Dr. Alarcón has worked in rural, migratory, and emergency settings across Mexico. She is currently pursuing training in global health and humanitarian medicine to further enhance her ability to deliver comprehensive care in challenging contexts.
Joaquim Guinart-Verdaguer
Joaquim Guinart-Verdaguer is a nurse and anthropologist who currently serves as the project coordinator for MSF in the CAI. Throughout his career with MSF, Joaquim has worked as a project coordinator in Angola, Bolivia, Colombia, Honduras, Mozambique, Sudan, and Tanzania.
Cassandra Meléndez Oliva
Cassandra Meléndez Oliva serves as a community mental health worker at the CAI, where she focuses on creating safe spaces and promoting the psychosocial well-being of people on the move. Cassandra holds a degree in international relations with a specialty in the defense and promotion of human rights for migrants and refugees. She has worked with various civil society organizations and international agencies in contexts of human mobility in Mexico City, Tenosique, Juchitán, and Tijuana, as well as in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Dr. Isaac Torres
Dr. Isaac Torres is a psychologist and coordinator for health and psychosocial care teams, supporting migrants and vulnerable communities across Mexico. He practices clinical psychology with international organizations and civil society groups that support people in situations of mobility. Dr. Torres holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a master’s degree in psychoanalysis, as well as a diploma in psychological first aid focused on migrants, refugees, and displaced people.
Avril Benoît
Avril Benoît is the chief executive officer of Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières in the United States (MSF USA). She has worked with the international medical humanitarian organization since 2006 in various operational management and executive leadership roles, most recently as the director of communications and development at MSF’s operational center in Geneva, a position she held from November 2015 until June 2019. Throughout her career with MSF, Avril has contributed to major movement-wide initiatives, including the global mobilization to end attacks on hospitals and health workers. She has worked as a country director and project coordinator for MSF, leading operations to provide aid to refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants in Mauritania, South Sudan, and South Africa. Avril’s strategic analysis and communications assignments have taken her to countries including Democratic Republic of Congo, Eswatini, Haiti, Iraq, Lebanon, Mexico, Mozambique, Nigeria, Sudan, Syria, and Ukraine. From 2006 to 2012, Avril served as director of communications with MSF Canada. Prior to joining MSF, Avril had a distinguished 20-year career as an award-winning journalist and broadcaster in Canada. She was a documentary producer and radio host with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), reporting from Kenya, Burundi, India, and Brazil on HIV stigma, rapid urbanization, sexual violence in conflict, and political inclusion of women, among numerous other assignments and topics.
