For PC4R supporter Beverley, the refugee crisis in Greece is very close to home. Here, as part of Refugee Week, she reveals how she got involved with fundraising for people living in the camps – and just how important the work of NGOs and grassroots organisations, like PC4R, is. Because, as she says, an individual can make a big difference, and a little goes a long way…
Eleven years ago, Bob and I bought a tiny two-room stone house on the Greek island of Evia, which runs alongside the Attica coast outside Athens. We can arrive at the house by ferry or drive over the connecting bridge in around two hours.
In 2014, a friend in Athens told us a refuge for unaccompanied Syrian young people was opening in Piraeus – the port of Athens. We made contact with the NGO running it and for two years helped to provide food and clothes for the 74 children, plus around 20 new mothers and their babies. The mainly teenage boys ate a ton of food and had only the clothes they stood up in, so we got busy with fundraising and, back home, started our never-ending collection of clothes and shoes for children and families. We held our first fundraising event, with Bob and his band playing a gig in our village hall. None us us could have dreamed where this would go – we thought after six months we’d call it a day.
Close to home
Then, six-and-a-half years ago, I heard that a camp for Syrian refugees was to open near the capital of Evia. In October, I arranged a strange sort of rendezvous on a roundabout outside the town. There, with an English friend who lives in Evia, I met with a Greek secondary school teacher, a Syrian barber and a young Syrian undergraduate, and we visited the camp at Ritsona for the first time.
We were made to feel very welcome and heard stories of the horrendous journeys people had made to arrive in Greece, many involving arduous, dangerous and exhausting experiences. By that point, the camp had taken delivery of Isoboxes – like portacabins – to house several hundred people. During our frequent visits with donations (which I collected in the UK), we would go box to box with a notepad making lists of individual requests. There would always be tea and Syrian food and children to play with.
Eventually, a falafel stand and coffee shop were opened by enterprising families and a tiny sense of home materialised.
Growing demand
Four years ago, I visited the newest and closest camp in Malakasa – a camp for Afghan refugees – as Ritsona was by now less in need of our help. Malakasa has grown and grown, as have all the camps – they are now ten times their original size. My wonderful Austrian friend has volunteered at Malakasa for five years, and she manages the warehouse alone, which involves baby milk, nappy and toiletries distribution, plus myriad other things people request – everything from bedding to dummies, incontinence pads and nit combs. She often runs out of supplies – if I’m there, out goes another appeal to our fabulous friends and we do our best to get what we can. It’s chaotic, but effective!
Sadly, things are changing for refugees in Greece. The government has a mandate to make life more difficult – and therefore less attractive – to new arrivals. NGOs are being told to leave. After more than six years visiting Ritsona, Bob and I were escorted in by security guards in January with clothes donations, and then forced to leave straight away – no falafel, no coffee, no visits to our friends who still live there. I fear Malakasa will soon go that way, too. Monthly grants to refugees have been cut from €150 a month to €75. There are now security guards, three-metre-high concrete walls and razor wire.
Lessons learned
But one huge lesson we’ve learned over the years is that individuals and small groups can make a huge difference. Over the past few years, we’ve taken flyers from PC4R to give to anyone we meet who has no access to phone credit. The refugee community in the main camps have access to the internet, but they often have contact with other people who are homeless in Athens, for whom PC4R could be invaluable.
Small fundraising efforts – €100 for urgent nappies or £1 flip flops from The Pound Shop – also really make a difference for NGOs and grassroots organisations, including PC4R, CRIBS (an Oldham-based charity providing accommodation for mothers and their newborns in Athens) and foodKIND (a group feeding hundreds of people in Malakasa), all of whom we support.
So now, onward into our seventh year we go – armed with more experience than we could ever have thought possible back then, on our six-month time scale.