Refugee Supply Depot

While prepping for this trip over the last year, Marc and I have had some pretty amazing conversations about what we want the next phase of our life to look like, what parts we want to keep, what parts we want to change.  Volunteering is part of Marc's and my glue. As with most people, it has brought immense richness to our lives, whether it was on behalf of our kids, our community or that extra mile with our jobs. We all do it and it makes a difference! This post is about how the Greek and international community of volunteers have stepped up, where all of your donations from around the world have arrived and the infrastructure created to ensure all of those goods get to the refugees.

So as we were doing our route planning, Greece became more and more important, not only because we were following warm weather patterns in January but because of the issues this country is facing - economic meltdown, European Union pressures, the Syrian refugee crisis on its shores because of geography alone.

From what we've experienced in the last month, so many layers of Greek society are amazing, as I've written about earlier. Underneath all that though is a country in crisis. Reading European media is a whole different slant than in North America, and it's not all favourable.

Refugees began arriving in boats in late 2014, primarily Syrian. By the end of 2015, slightly more than 1 million refugees have entered the European Union via the Greek islands, Lesvos and Samos being the closest to Turkey's shores, the main exit point. On these 2 islands (population under 100,000 between the two) live farmers, ouzo and cheese producers, and those who are building a nascent tourist industry.

When the refugees started arriving, islanders opened their homes and villages without a pause. While legal processing occurs,  they helped get refugees' status sorted, they fed, warmed, calmed, clothed and got them onto the ferries that would bring them to Athens. Once in Athens, if approved onto Greek soil, the refugees are entitled to movement within the EU. With the better economies and social infrastructure in the North, that's where they're headed.

Back in Wakefield this past summer, we visited our mechanic of 10 years, Khaled. He was in such a state. The story unfolded of the rest of his Syrian family, sister in her 70s, a younger brother, their spouses and children having made it to Greece. And now they were walking north. He had been up for 2 nights straight guiding his brother via cellphone through mountainous terrain, Khaled picking up his brother's cell phone signal on his own phone while looking at Google Earth, giving him directions through the night. An unbelievable, harrowing story. 

A plan evolved that we would try and meet up with an Athens refugee support group and offer a few days' labour if we could, wherever they needed it most. With this flow of people going on for more than a year, the volunteer network in this city of Athens is incredible. The state is doing very little, for reasons both obvious and not-so. We have hooked up with a group called Refugees Welcome to Piraeus (Athens' port name), found on Facebook, and it has spawned numerous subgroups providing food, clothing, legal advice, health care, translators, advocacy services, protection. We contacted them a few days before our arrival, "2 Canadians Offering to Help" read my subject line and after some research and an angel, we were given our first assignment. Turns out our AirBnB host Matta, is the head of another non-profit related to children and confirmed this was legitimate /safe and put in a good word for us!

Up early on Sunday morning, we headed out to the outskirts of Athens via bus to one of the 2004 Olympic complexes that has been turned into a "hotspot", one of 5 between here and Greece's northern border that is either a camp or supply depot. Desolate doesn't even begin to describe what has happened to these 7-8 sports venues, not utilized since the closing ceremonies. We sign in with the guard who directs us to the wrong building a couple of kilometres distant. We find ourselves in the middle of a men's camp, everyone just waking, outside smoking, waiting for some food to be served. There is a backlog at the processing centres further north of the city, for now, they wait. Marc has a conversation with a few of the 20-somethings, who have been travelling for 29 days to get here.

This is the former field hockey venue, the first two floors are cots filled with refugees, the 2 field tents have more cots and pup tents inside for extra warmth, the nights are chilly.

We walk back towards the security gate and are directed to another building, the former Olympic Basketball and Handball Venue, which is now a donations processing centre where volunteers receive, sort and distribute donations that have arrived from around the world. This is where we will spend the day working. We meet the Head Angel, Negia ( left, in photo below), a grandmother who has taken this on because "someone had to, I'm retired, I'm used to being busy, and something 

needed to be done". She gives us a quick tour of the bowels of the building, clearly proud, which is stuffed to the rafters with clothing, non-perishable food, baby items. The goods arrive by shipping container from all over the world, they've outgrown port storage and have convinced the state to grant them access to this facility. From here, all donations are sorted and shipped back out as quickly as possible, back to the islands or further north along the migration route. All by Greek and international volunteers.

We are assigned "men's shoes". Two containers from Holland and Croatia arrived a few days before, and she had some young refugees from the camp help them unload it. In return, she offered them shoes.  In their glee, they tore apart her organized section and she wants us to put it back together so she can move in about 40 more boxes for us to sort through. We separate by size and season, right now she needs to send out winter shoes and boots for the travel north. "They will keep coming, we can save summer shoes for later". We set to work, and are joined by Martha, a retired American who has lived in Greece for 35 years, and Frank, a Greek here to help. Domi, a young volunteer  from Belgium asks us about our task, having arrived from the islands to see if he can expedite a shipment. There's a mom sorting baby supplies, and 2 young women sorting winter children's clothes. We all concentrate on our task for the day. 

The end of our shift arrives, and as we are saying goodbyes, Negia wants us to come to the Port next to help, our 2nd shift,  and then for dinner as thanks,  which we will do on Wednesday, if all is well. Up to 4 ferries per day arrive with 400-1200 refugees on each ferry, collected off the islands they've come ashore on. 

The situation is changing very quickly though this  week. More refugees have drowned this month than in all of 2015, smugglers and profiteers are increasingly involved, and the boats are getting crappier and crappier. The EU Ministers were here this past  weekend, some have demanded that Greece turn the refugees away, which would mean leaving them in their boats. Tonight we're hearing that the Greek Navy is at the Islands, that the police are now involved at the Port. There is also a nation-wide  strike happening on Thursday which doesn't help the volatile situation. Something has to change though! 

In the meantime, know that whatever you've donated does make a difference, we were quite humbled in handling men's shoes, knowing who and where they were going. And hundreds of people like Negia are working hard to make sure the aid gets to the people  who need it.

As we exit the stadium, we are met by 2 men our age from Northern Ireland, who look like they've seen the rougher side of life,  who have filled their caravan with their towns'  donations and driven to Athens. They've just dropped it all off. They will return home via the migration route helping out where they can. "We had a week's holiday and love driving, so we thought, why not do some good?We'll probably be back in a month."

What's that quote?  ...every action, no matter how small...

If you want to see the Facebook group: click here