In 2015, 856,000 people passed through the Greek islands, and in 2017 and 2018 only just under 30 thousand (according to UNHCR). But 2019 brought already a growth – over 60,000 newcomers. Today, boats coming to Greek beaches are back again, and practice shows that you can get stuck in Lesbos for a good few years. Nikos and Katerina run a small restaurant on the island, where every refugee can feel at home and eat a meal for free.
19.10.2021
Thanks to you, hot, nutritious meals for the most vulnerable residents of the refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos are prepared daily at Home for All. We are developing Homeland, a small farm where refugees are learning to cultivate the land and find their first jobs. The same with the olive oil mill, which will start exporting the best quality oil any day now. Our help at the site is no longer just the proverbial fish, but the fishing rod tailored to their needs, a springboard for thinking about independence and a better future. Time for the next step!!! Time for School for All!!! We start with educational activities for the youngest residents of the camp in specially prepared classrooms.
A lot has changed in Moria 2.0 since last year. Just after the previous camp burned to the ground, we fought to save the people, who again had to flee from danger, and who spent the following nights in olive groves and on the roadsides. The makeshift camp was not equipped to survive the rainy and windy winter. The first rains flooded it completely. The sight of infants in the arms of mothers who had nowhere to put them, standing up to their knees in flooded tents, is hard to forget. It also mobilised us to arrive as quickly as possible with basic support: raingear, warm clothes, blankets and prams. Today, Camp Moria 2.0 is no longer just tents collapsing under the pressure of the wind, but relatively safe containers. And although there are still problems with electricity and the quality of the food rations allocated by the authorities, the chaos is at least partly under control.
It is in these conditions that the residents of the camp are trying to find their feet and organise a relatively normal life. Fathers assemble small playgrounds and swings made of pallets. Former teachers, now residents of the camp, are organising groups of children and young people for whom they are providing informal education.
Katerina and Nikos have had the idea for a school brewing in their heads for a long time. Today they are finally proud to share it with everyone. Eleven containers will arrive at the camp. One will serve as a canteen, the others as fully equipped classrooms. In addition to the core subjects, we want the pupils to have classes in art, culture, handicrafts and geography. There are also plans for a small vegetable garden, a playground and the camp’s first cinema!
We will, of course, get involved in the new project and share with School for All the experience we have gained over the past years from running a similar day centre for children in Bangladesh, the world’s largest refugee camp. We will do our best to bring colour to the dreams of the little ones, but of course we can’t do anything without you.
If you like our idea and want to do your part in restoring childhood to the youngest, whose everyday life is suspended somewhere between war at home and inaccessible Europe, visit GoodWorks 24/7 and make a donation towards building School for All.
27.08.2023
The unpaved road stretches for kilometres and winds down the mountainous slopes. It cuts through bone-dry pine forests. From here to Mitylena, the island’s capital, it is more than 40 kilometres. To any sign of civilisation – more than 10. Out of sight, out of mind of all outsiders, a gigantic new refugee camp is […]
14.08.2023
Onur was a baker in Kurdistan. He is not afraid of any job. Stately, broad-shouldered, hands like vices. They have strength and feel. He arrived in Lesbos eight years ago. Abdul got off the boat on a Greek beach a year later. In Syria, he was a mechanic. He has fixed up his decrepit old […]
09.08.2023
“No disease will touch them. They are wild trees. They have already survived more than one pest.” When Nikos talks about olives, he grabs the listener’s full attention. You fall into a tunnel where there are you, Nikos and the olives. We talk like this for several hours. I don’t know how many. Nobody is […]
