*Sent:*?Tuesday, February 21, 2017 at 9:42 PM
*From:*?"Hope and Aid Direct"
*To:*?ian@...
*Subject:*?Wrap-up report - Greece - Jan 17
‘Wrap-up’ indeed……with lying snow, solidly frozen lakes, and sometimes thick ice across parking areas, all the way from Belgium to Greece, s
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Wrap-up reportHope and Aid convoy to GreeceJanuary 2017 ( )
‘Wrap-up’ indeed……with lying snow, solidly frozen lakes, and sometimes thick ice across parking areas, all the way from Belgium to Greece, sleeping on top of the loads in the back of the trucks with overnight temperatures of minus 16, we very quickly understood and appreciated what the refugees sleeping rough or living in tents had to be going through – to put minus 16 into perspective, that’s like sleeping INSIDE your home Freezer which ideally should run at between minus 10 and minus 20! (But please don’t try it at home!)
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Whatever your political views, whether you’re in favour of Brexit or not, or whether you admire or loathe the man now in charge of the White House, surely every person who will read this report by the very nature of wanting to do so, must be struggling with the knowledge of the suffering of refugees for whom superlative adjectives are insufficient in number or depth to truly describe their desperation. My personal struggle is with the notion that is so often quoted here in the UK, that Britain ‘can’t take any more, that we are full, and overflowing!’ We’ve returned from Greece to the Government’s shameful reneging on the Dub’s Amendment to take 3000 child refugees, (and yes in the last year we’ve seen thousands of very young child refugees) reducing that number now to a maximum of 350 children. To put that indecently trivial number into perspective, there are no fewer than 48,076 towns in The UK (Source: TownsList)…..and 610,123 empty homes (Source; UK Gov). Who are the Government lying to, other than themselves? ?
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I’m simply NOT SATISFIED!
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Since starting Hope and Aid Direct 18 years ago, we’ve tried staunchly to remain non-Political; we are not affiliated to any one group, whether by Race, Religion, Colour, or Political views and we continue to try and stand by that principle. It’s hard! Our values are 100% humanitarian….human! We won’t stand back and do nothing when a human being needs help! We don’t accept that humans are just numbers, or someone else’s problem. We give hugs and empathy if we can’t give anything else, and try to treat others, as we hope others would treat us if we needed help!
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This ‘aid’ convoy had its fair share of practical challenges, for example; the essential and expensive and newly purchased Belgian Road Toll box left behind in a Suffolk car park (Sorry Tony); the belligerent bureaucracy of Hungarian border Customs officials and then their alleged ‘computer failure’ that put us nearly a day behind; the electrical fault and flashing interior lights, warning lights and unstoppable buzzer inside one of the trucks (sorry again Tony); the blatant highway robbery of the Macedonian border officials requiring 230 Euros per truck (more than ?1000) in cash, for 3 hours of supposed road insurance along a dual carriageway, with a point blank refusal or inability to provide a written Policy document;? the truck with no heating there or back endured by heroic drivers; yet …………we really have no right to complain!!?
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In ‘Moria’ Refugee Camp in Lesvos, three refugees died during the few days we were on the Island, most likely from hypothermia…….
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We had planned to take just two of the trucks and a small flying group to Lesvos, leaving everyone else to distribute aid on the mainland, but on arrival in Thessalonica, we learned that in the preceding days (including while we’d been travelling), the majority of the refugees in three of the larger Refugee Camps around Thessalonica had been moved from tents to empty holiday hotels and other accommodation because of the cold weather. Well done to the authorities, but what to do now? There was no doubt that aid was still needed, but distribution logistics would take time to work out. Meanwhile, the situation on Lesvos was getting worse, and with less than 24 hours till the only ferry for four days would depart, we didn’t feel we had a choice but to take all the trucks and all the volunteers there, with additional aid that had already been earmarked for the Island.
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Our five-truck convoy became six with the addition of long-term volunteer Robby’s adapted Truck-Shop of pre-loaded clothes rails, plus five cars and a total of 35 amazing volunteers. Several thousands of pounds later, with the overnight ferry journey paid for and completed, we all disgorged from the ferry doors at 6am, and with the new yet to be filled warehouse gates closed, we pulled all the trucks onto a sea fronted pavement lay-by to watch the sunrise over the old castle. The temperature was just about at or below freezing, and one mad trucker (sorry Pete) went for an early morning swim in his underwear!
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An hour or two later, and the warehouse gates had been opened, and after a number of introductions, and ‘clarification of objectives’, the trucks were carefully unloaded. The warehouse was quickly but carefully organised and laid out. The volunteers formed into task-oriented groups, and boxes were sorted, winter packs were made up, clothes rails were filled, and chaos turned into organisation. Everyone had to learn by doing, and everything was being done from scratch, including relationship building with local groups, and existing volunteers.
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There are three refugee camps, or ‘reception centres’ on the Island of Lesvos; Pikpa which is a small but well organised refuge for vulnerable women and children, Kara Tepe which is described by the Manager Stavros as a ‘Hospitality Centre for Migrants and Refugees’, and Moria, which was built as a Military Base with high razor wire fences, and so many refugees awaiting ‘registration’ that several thousand can’t be accommodated in the IKEA provided easy-build contained units, that they are having to sleep in ‘weekend’ camping tents on the freezing arctic wind-blown slopes of the hills surrounding it. Since we were there just 9 months ago, all of the tented area has been moved to the back end of Moria camp so that it is neither visible nor accessible by anyone passing or by unregistered volunteers. ?For not the first time, ‘out of sight, out of mind’! ?All of the camps are heavily overcrowded, with several thousand people there in excess of their official capacity. Horror stories abound on social media, confirmed to us many times by the refugees directly.
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It would be very easy to blame officialdom for obstructive bureaucracy, lack of compassion, lack of caring, poor food, poor sanitation, and general appalling ineptitude, but with a number of the larger International charities as well as some smaller ones all vying for the opportunity to do their bit to help the refugees, and an increasing number of ego’s, the sudden death of three refugees within a week seemed to galvanise activity, even if not universally applauded. At first, all the aid agency staff were seen to be departing, and then families with children were removed from Moria by the bus load from the relative comfort of the heated IKEA containers to accommodation around the Island where they would presumably have to fend for themselves. Individuals who had been sleeping in tents were moved into the vacated containers. Tensions were high, and there were some fights and a heavy Police presence. Hope and Aid Direct volunteers remained on ‘call-alert’ that night, in case we were needed to distribute supplies.
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That night, was it our second on the Island, rumour was that many refugees would make their way to the Port area for refuge. At midnight, at the port, through Suleman who was speaking to some of the refugees in their native language, we met ‘Ahtsham’, who was a ‘friend’ who had been sharing a tent with one of the young men who had just died. We are still in communication now, and hope to provide more details in due course, but meanwhile, we arranged to help him and the 150 other men who, with him, were taking overnight shelter in the Greek naval Tank Carrier Landing Craft that was moored alongside the commercial Ferry in the Port. The ship’s Captain very kindly allowed us to look inside where we saw that the ships enormous long belly was filled with camp beds, every one being used by men with their only possessions being the flimsy clothes they had, and a UNHCR standard issue blanket. The front of the ship’s bow had been lifted to form a huge opening, so the cold air was blowing through the ship, but halogen wall heaters lined the walls to provide some warmth. Government Food parcels stacked on the side were blister pack-filled boxes with a bed of cooked but now cold rice, with three cold hard boiled eggs in their shells sitting on the rice.
During that day, while doing our own recce to see how and where we could distribute and help, we went to ‘the squat’ – two derelict buildings adjacent to Kara Tepe camp. Refugee women and a few small children were sitting at a makeshift table near the entrance to the first building, and someone called Thomas met us, and willingly showed us around. At first I thought he was one of the squatters, but we quickly learned that he was one of a few amazing volunteers from Germany, one of whom stays at the ‘squat’ every day, to try and be with the refugees who are there. The volunteers have a Portakabin on the roof. The refugees sleep anywhere they can in the cold, dirty warehouse, and I even found one tent on top of a pallet, sitting on scaffold poles protruding 20 feet up out above the warehouse floor. In the second and far worse building, full of discarded rubbish, and no doubt with rats and other vermin, and with sheets of ice inside and outside where the dripping water from the roof had frozen, men were huddled into a small room, one man was shaving another, and in a separate area, the space had been cleared, and tents constructed around the outer perimeter wall. We learned that during daylight hours, most of the squatters went back to the camps, no doubt to meet friends, but they come back at night and to receive meals cooked by the volunteers of ‘No Borders Kitchen’. We promised, and provided aid and a few pallets of food, but this could only be done after everyone in the ‘Squat’ had been treated for scabies!
The next day, we persevered, and got in to have a meeting with ‘Stavros’ (who Suleman and I had known and helped previously a year before) at Kara Tepe ‘Hospitality Centre’, and he gave his permission for Robby, and the amazing ‘Truck Shop’ team from Thessalonica to set up their free Truck-shop inside the ‘Centre’, and distribute clothes and other items during the coming weeks. We also got agreement to immediately provide specifically requested aid to another NGO group already working inside, and that was done very quickly afterwards. By the time we returned to the warehouse, the No Borders Kitchen tent had been constructed, and food preparation was starting to provide hot meals at the Squat and to more people at the camps.
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We sent a very willing group of our volunteers back to our hotel with face paints (Glenys and Emma having done it before) and sculpturing balloons that we had brought with us, and sufficient quantities of aid, including of course warm clothing, and shoe-box children’s gifts, but also some of the many filled handbags for the ladies. The Hotel was temporary home for 50 refugee families, with nearly 100 young children, and all of them were there under Vulnerable Persons protection, funded and supported by Caritas. The Caritas on-site staff had a small office which clearly doubled as a children’s room, and they were thrilled when we said that we could provide much needed aid, and entertain the children. It was very obvious by the time we all returned to the Hotel afterwards, that children, volunteers and parents alike had enjoyed the afternoon, and that it had brought much pleasure. We had been asked specifically not to take any photos of the children’s faces for fear of them getting out on social media. It was impossible not to notice one little girl whose face Rachel had carefully painted; she had been severely facially burned during the bombings in Syria, and one can only imagine what her thoughts must have been that afternoon, playing with all the other children with all their faces painted!
Everything was being readied for the pre-arranged evening distribution near the Port, and Robby’s truck-shop was filled with the clothes rails holding warm coats, and warm tops, as well as the winter packs of hats, gloves, and scarves. Robby had been insistent that only these three items should be distributed first, to ensure things were orderly, and to give each refugee time and the dignity to choose and try on each item. Coloured key tag labels and numbers had been prepared the day before, and these were given out at the Port in an orderly queue. The refugees were sent to the distribution site close by in batches to select and receive their aid, but the team also made and gave them hot tea, and they chatted animatedly about how pleased they were. The Ship’s Captain allowed one or two of the volunteers to enter the ship and see for themselves, and was himself very complimentary about the well organised distribution. While all this was happening, Gary and Tony in ‘Brenda’ made several trips back to the warehouse to re-stock, including sleeping bags and blankets which they took into the disused adjacent swimming pool at the Port, which had a few dozen frightened and hiding refugees inside. We all finished by about Midnight, but it had been a good night!
The day we left, yet another raft of 50 or 60 refugees arrived, again from Turkey, but this time with many Africans from the DRC who had been brutalised in Libya, and with really awful frostbite from crossing the mountains to get into Turkey where they had spent three days in the woods with no food or water. According to the simply inspiring Eric and Philippa Kempson in northern Lesvos, a really tough boat to deal with by the volunteers. Shocking photos of frostbitten hands, too graphic to reproduce here!
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A week later, Robby and the team had already distributed clothes and other things so far to 1387 refugees, from five separate locations, and their efforts are ongoing. Today as I’m writing this, they are again at the Port distributing Trousers, socks, underwear, and other items. The day after we had all departed, Robby and Andreas ‘the Great’ who had decided to stay on a few extra days to help Robby with interpreting, managed to get into Moria camp at the same time as the Minister of Migration from Athens, and they all met with the outgoing, as well as the soon to be incoming new camp manager. Agreement was given there also ‘in principle’ for the free Truck Shop to set up there as well, but although that hasn’t happened yet, another group, EuroRelief, who are already working inside the camp have said that they are extremely interested in working with Robby and the team to distribute the clothing to the people who now remain in Moria, and that will happen in the coming days. We took more than 10 tons of food with us; in addition to some of the food left for Pikpa Camp, No Borders Kitchen are now cooking and distributing 600 meals per day, and Remar are cooking and distributing 1400 meals per day.
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“No one ever said this would be easy” – I’ve told myself that many times in the past 18 years, and it certainly doesn’t get any easier. A huge amount of work is done behind the scenes. Running Hope and Aid Direct would be a full time role for several people if we had paid staff, and that’s before receipt and sorting of any aid. Aid work is hard, often extremely frustrating, always challenging, emotional, and not for the feint hearted, but for those with endless patience, determination, an open heart and compassion, the rewards are constant and endless, often small, and always priceless!
I want to ‘wrap-up’ by thanking all our donors, and our funding contributor Muntada Aid, but particularly I want to pay tribute to all the unpaid volunteers who have given up their time and often their money to work behind the scenes and do what they have done. Special tribute has to go to all the long-term and mostly unpaid volunteers like Robby and his team, and many more too many to mention specifically, who sleep and live in the cold dirty warehouses that they have made their temporary homes, with makeshift sanitation and cooking arrangements, in order to help humanity in the most practical way possible. Simply wonderful and incredible people!
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Charles Storer MBE
Co-founder and Head of Operations
Hope and Aid Direct
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Wednesday 1st March
Pub Quiz
Roger and Ciara, who will be running the London Marathon will be hosting this event to raise money for Hope and Aid Direct. ?Join us for a fun night.
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Sunday 30th July
Ride London
The ballot for Ride London ( ) places is now closed. ?Please share with all your cyclist friends the fact the we have 10 places available.?We need your help to fill them.
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