Given the lack of autonomy of healthcare centers in developing countries, due above all to the difficulty of obtaining drugs, acupuncture stands out as a very appropriate means of improving their situation.

  Acupuncture Without Borders (AWB) (“Acupuncture Sans Frontières” ASF) was founded in France on 23 February 1992, and the first missions were carried out in the Tibetan refugee camps of northern India. Humanitarian acupuncture in a spirit of solidarity was born.

  Since then, other Acupuncture Without Borders (AWB) centres have seen the light of day: AWB Switzerland in 1996, AWB Belgium in 2004, and in 2008 AWB Pyrenees, AWB Quebec, AWB in Spain “Acupuntura para el mundo”.

          The purpose of Acupuncture Without Borders is to train acupuncture practitioners so that they can offer local people an efficient healing technique in addition to their existing healthcare practices, whether these are based on modern Western medicine or traditional medicine.  

Thus, patients deprived of all basic necessities obtain access to drug-free healthcare treatment.

          Today, AWB remains committed to this objective, which is still far from being attained in all developing countries. But encouraged by the results that have already been obtained, AWB is continuing to press forward with its activities.

          Relying exclusively on volunteer help, Acupuncture Without Borders has worked together for over ten years with medical and healthcare teams in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean, that have requested assistance in the creation of low-impact, more efficient structures.

          On November 20, 2004, at a one-day information conference held in Geneva, the AWB Centers decided to create an international organization, which effectively saw the day on February 9, 2005.

  The main objectives of Acupuncture Without Borders International, which has its headquarters in Vandoeuvres (Geneva, Switzerland), are:

• To serve as a link between the existing AWB Centers worldwide with a view to maintaining a common vision.
• To develop an ongoing in-depth debate on AWB’s objectives and actions, and on the means employed in their realization. 
• To optimize the teaching media used by the various AWB Centers.
• To assist in the creation and establishment of new AWB Centers.
• To promote funding of AWB missions throughout the world.

With these objectives in mind, Acupuncture Without Borders International has set up three committees: an Ethics Committee, an administrative Committee, and a Pedagogic Committee, each of which works together closely with the AWB Centers from which its delegates are drawn.