The Situation at Piraeus is deteriorating

This is the latest news from Refugee Child at the port in Piraeus. In my posts I have usually anglicised Iokasti's Kitchen and called it Jocasta's Kitchen. It's the same team

There are currently thousands of refugees trapped at the port of Piraeus in Athens. Women, men, and children are sleeping in squalid, unsanitary, and unsafe conditions in passenger waiting areas, in an old warehouse, in tents outdoors, and even under trucks. Estimates are that children make up at least 50% of the numbers there. In the absence of any visible government support or personnel, the day to day operation of the camp is dependent on volunteers and aid groups.

• “Pregnant women, people with disabilities, and young children in particular are stuck in limbo without dignity or hope,” said Eva Cossé, Greece specialist at Human Rights Watch.

What are we doing?

Refugee Child are proud to have partnered with Iokasti's Kitchen. We have provided transport for the next few months enabling the kitchen to become mobile and get it to Athens. The kitchen will serve 2000 meals every day. We have pledged to cover meals for the children for 2 months. That's around 56,000 meals! This is amazing but is still only half of the demand, and will run out if we don't raise more funds together to help alleviate the suffering of our friends currently stranded in Greece.

The kitchen team are on their way today and can't wait to get started.  (I will join them from Lincoln next Thursday.) 

Please continue to donate, fundraise and share our posts. We need your continued support to achieve this.

Also  the kitchen will need the support of volunteers so if you would like to join the team in Athens please get in contact.

A huge thank you from everyone at Refugee Child and Iokasti's Kitchen x

Let me add this:

We can feed people a healthy vegetarian meal for around 60p. That's FOUR meals for less than the cost of a Starbucks Cappuccino. 

If you can chip in the cost of a few coffees it would really help us. 

Here's the link to my fund-raising page:-

Prisoners of War

Women, children and men of all ages,  herded behind fences

They fled from war, persecution, oppression, poverty. 

They risked their lives in flimsy dinghies.

Then Northern Europe closed its borders with Greece.

...and now they are detained in virtual prison camps.

The terrifying sea-crossing was preferable to staying behind

We are facing Europe's biggest humanitarian crisis of our lifetime. Tens of thousands of refugees are now effectively incarcerated in detention centres across the Greek mainland.

Most of them lost everything in their home country, and now they simply want to start a new life.

Respected NGOs like Save the Children, MSF (Doctors without Borders) and UNHCR (United Nations High Commission for Refugees) are withdrawing from operations in Greece because the deal negotiated between Turkey and the European Union is unworkable and - in the words of MSF: "unfair and inhumane."

Hundreds of families, thousands of children

The island of Samos, where I was headed, is virtually drained of refugees, and Jocasta's Kitchen - the project I expected to work on - is packing up and transferring to the mainland.

The need is huge.

The occupants of the island centres are rounded up and shipped to Piraeus to await bussing to camps all over Northern Greece. 

Arriving at the port of Piraeus

Up to 2,500 passengers arriving on one ferry.

  

So, next week I fly to Athens to help feed the thousands who are stranded with nowhere to go. If you want to be part of the solution, please follow what is actually happening and share the stories with your friends. British media offer very limited coverage, but there are dozens of websites and blogs that will give you the big picture.
I you want to contribute to the expansion and running costs of the catering operations we are working on, you can donate through the site I have set up. And if you do decide to donate, can I thank you in advance, on behalf of all the people whose lives have been ruined, and who just want the opportunity to make a fresh start. Here's the link:

https://www.gofundme.com/Samos-Refugees

What happens when the lights go out?

Very occasionally, we have a power cut in the UK

People hunt around for candles and matches; children are excited by the novelty, and play with torches, while Dad digs out an old transistor radio and hunts for the right size of batteries. It's a lot of fun.  The wireless landline phones won't work, so friends and neighbours are contacted on mobiles in attempts to find out the extent of the disruption.

But after an hour or so, the lights flicker back on, and a cheer rings out from the homes up and down the street. 

Not so in Syria  .  . . .

No British television channel reveals the full scale of the horrific situation on the other side of the channel whether it's the mudbath of Calais and Dunkirk, the prison-style camps across the Balkans, or the drowned children of the Eastern Aegean. This is Europe's biggest humanitarian crisis in our lifetime. They are all refugees, whether they are fleeing from persecution, war, poverty - or all of these. It is insulting and irresponsible to refer to them, sneeringly, as a swarm of migrants.
Most of the refugees have lost every aspect of their home life; the others never had much in the way of "home life." They have lost the buildings, the infrastructure and the community. It is like the East End of London in WW2 - on a scale almost as total as what RAF Bomber Command did to Dresden. 

King George and Queen Elizabeth in the East End in 1941 at the height of the Blitz

Aleppo, Syria; 2016

I fly to Greece on April 6th, and was scheduled to help run Jocasta's Kitchen on the island of Samos, preparing a thousand meals a day for refugees, with plans to double the output over the coming weeks. 
Now the rules have changed. Boats are ferrying refugees to and fro between the islands and Turkey, or from the islands to Piraeus, the port of Athens.
We might decide to pack up Jocasta's Kitchen and relocate it on the mainland, possibly at Idomeni.

Thousands are stranded at Idomeni at the border with Macedonia

If you want to be part of the answer, money would help through the scheme I have set up below - but there is something far more important.....

...Evil triumphs when ignorance flourishes, so spread the word about the reality of the situation; be prepared to welcome refugees to our country, and help them settle in. The biggest impediment to improving the situation is the intransigence of our own government, who know that there are no votes to be won by increasing immigration, and carefully ignore and avoid their humanitarian obligation. 

How can we call ourselves a "Christian Country!" Clearly the PM has a different version of the Bible from the one we had at home.

So . . . how would you feel if you were on the run from poverty and persecution?

https://www.gofundme.com/Samos-Refugees

The price of a cup of coffee

The price of a cup of coffee can provide TEN hot meals for refugees stranded on the Greek island of Samos. A donation of £10 will feed at least forty.

I am counting the days till I fly out to help with the catering in Iokasti's (Jocasta's) Kitchen; where local women and volunteers currently produce a thousand meals every day. They are organised to deliver TEN hot meals at an average cost per meal of less than you'd pay for just ONE regular Cappuccino in Starbucks or any of the chain coffee shops. 
My fund is aimed primarily at supporting the necessary infrastructure and equipment needed for mass catering, as well as emergency supplies of clothing. 

Crowds protesting at the Macedonian border

This week the team on the island have delegated the Samos operation and are off to the mainland, to help with catering at the Macedonian border town of Idomeni, where an estimated ten thousand refugees are stranded without food or shelter. 
I join them on Samos in three weeks time, and will be there initially till the end of July. 

Please help fund this humanitarian operation !

This link will take you to my "Go Fund Me" page

Lincoln - March 8th 2016 (International Women's Day)

Lincoln Cathedral - the view from my front door in Lincoln

I am always amazed by the sky in Lincoln. I live in the Cathedral Close, and the cathedral is on a ridge, rising steeply from the flat land to the South and East. The sky in the mornings is often a brilliant blue right through the year, and the sun feels warm, even though the wind from the East can be bitterly cold.

I've been in India for three months, so there's a shock to the system in the change in temperature, but there's another shock to the system in the attitude of people back here in UK, compared to the warmth of the tropical welcome and the positive "Can-Do" attitude of the young people in India, with their impressive dedication to education and self-improvement .

It is a similar situation with the stories I've been reading about refugees struggling across Western Asia, then risking the lives of themselves and their children in the Search for a Better Life. There is a determination to rebuild their lives, after the violence of war, torture, persecution. . . but I am not going to list all the horrors of their lives in the Middle East; the point is this: Can we help them rebuild their lives and give their children the promise of future opportunities?

I don't know the answer: all I do know is that I can't sit in Lincoln watching television and enjoying warm central heating while there are people in Greece, half-way to escaping their past and half-way to embracing a better future. It gets a bit biblical, and I am haunted by memories of Sunday School:

• "When did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you?" 

So I fly in four weeks, to the island of Samos for a month - but I could be there much longer. In fact, I HOPE I shall be there much longer, doing something useful and helping people who have lost everything, to recover their self-esteem and rebuild their future.