People Who Come Out as Volunteers
I had a message this week from someone called Alan, who wanted to know how he could get involved with a volunteer project in Greece. He told me that he’d written to several projects and posted on several Facebook groups, but hadn’t had any response, and wanted advice as to what he should do next. I had a message from another volunteer, Helen; and I knew her from working alongside her in Athens on a couple of occasions in April. She asked me if it was worth returning to Greece, since the government is closing in on volunteer activities and she wondered if there would be any opportunities to get involved if she came out later this month. Where does one begin to answer enquiries like these?
I then read an online article a mix of volunteers from a wide variety of backgrounds. There was nothing too complicated about the situations they described, they said nothing too controversial in their comments about the Greek government, and there was human interest in the tragic stories from the refugees with whom the volunteers had been working. But it isn’t all like that.
My favourite refugee-volunteer was an 18-year-old Syrian guy who’d completed his school exams and was now hoping to progress to college and university. You don’t get many refugees working alongside the volunteers, but he wanted to keep speaking English, and help in any way that he could.
On several occasions, he helped us to serve beakers of hot chickpea stew from the back of our van in Victoria Square (before the police banned us distributing food in public areas.) His whole attitude was to grasp every new experience that life tossed at him. He’d crossed the Aegean from Turkey in an inflatable supplied by the people-smugglers, and had loved every minute of it. “It was wicked! Real James Bond stuff, you know, like making the big get-away to escape the bad guys!”
Who are the Volunteers?
They come from all over the world. Some commit to a month or more; others volunteers drift in and drift off. When they are part of a team like the “Bristol Group,” there is a self-imposed discipline that makes them totally reliable. They say they’ll be there at 8am and they are there on the doorstep at 7.55. Then there are always extra pairs of hands to be found from students who like to combine a holiday with a bit of volunteering, but while there is always something to do, all the teams prefer to have members who are going to be around for a month or more, as this gives the project some operational stability.
Unless you arrive as a member of a major organisation like MSF (Médécins sans Frontières) it’s hopeless trying to plan life as a volunteer. Right now they need volunteers on the islands, but that could change in a matter of days. My advice to anyone coming out is to be flexible, be prepared to move around, and be humble – these people have suffered more than you can possibly imagine.
Organising Volunteers is like Herding Geese
Anyone who has ever volunteered to do anything will know the challenges of coordinating a team. Whether it’s the tombola at the School Fete or the Harvest Supper in the Village Hall, it is almost impossible to have people agree on either Organisation or Process. My own experience has been that the willing helpers fall into two distinct groups. There are those who want to be told what to do and how to do it – and they will then just get on with it in a spirit of quiet efficiency. Then there are those who take offence at the idea of being told how to do anything less complex than brain surgery and will do things their own way, regardless of anyone else. Working with volunteers to serve refugees is no different, and organising volunteers can be exhausting.
And since they are all less than half my age, I am immediately disqualified from saying anything that they would find worth listening to.
I exaggerate (poetic licence) but I did soon decide that I was most happily occupied in a quiet corner where I could sit calmly, peeling and chopping my way through a 25kilo bag of onions. As for the music that the volunteers seem to require as constant background wallpaper, - I unplugged my hearing aids and was a Happy Bunny, murmuring to myself that one day they’ll grow up and discover that the entire pop music industry since the early 60s has been part of a CIA Mind Control programme. They can’t think, you know, totally brain-dead, probably just the way Allen Dulles planned they should be.
The Long Wait for an Answer
I have learned that the most frustrating aspect of being a refugee / migrant / asylum seeker is the endless waiting, day after day, for the appointment, the interview or the phone call that might, –just might, – take them closer to the start of their new life. This might be asylum, and the first faltering steps towards normality; it might mean a return to full-time education and the potential to plan a future career; it might mean a long-awaited family reunification. Through these weeks of limbo, there is utter boredom, and I soon realised that my feel-good-factor from chopping vegetables and feeding the hungry, was blocking one or more refugees. Any one of them could take my place at the chopping board and know that they were actively participating in their personal survival and progress towards something better. Anything would be better than the indefinite wait.
Handing over my Chef’s Knife
When Iokasti’s Kitchen closed, I had no qualms in handing my best chef’s knife to the kitchen team in one of the refugee accommodations and turning my hand to various desk-bound projects which I had shelved for lack of time and opportunity. My time in Athens has introduced me to an amazing band of young people whose lives as voluntary nomads are focused solely on helping the involuntary nomads who drift westwards from Syrian and Afghanistan, having lost everything in their homelands. Many of these volunteers – the Dreadlocks and Tattoos as I called them in a blog post a couple of weeks ago – have put their own lives on hold for weeks, months or even years while they focus simply on giving less fortunate people a new start in life. You’ll find this eclectic tribe of twenty-somethings working in communities around the world, happy to be free, and happy to postpone their personal settling -down for a few years.
For my part, I have rejoiced at the opportunity to be involved and make a contribution in different ways. The funds that I raised bought van-loads of vegetables, rice and pulses that we cooked and served to refugees who were sleeping rough. I also bought hiking back-packs from importers in England and had them sent them to a UK warehouse from which goods are shipped out to Calais and beyond. As any walker knows, if your load is on your back, your hands stay free.
Telling it How it Is
Since the police closed down our cooking, I have been able to research more about the refugees’ long journey and make time to write this blog, which tells a few hundred people what it’s really like over here.
From the emails that I have received, I know that this modest occasional scribble of mine has opened a few eyes to the realities of the Refugee Trail.
I endeavour to remind them that last week the world press talked far more about a gorilla being shot than about a thousand people drowning in the Mediterranean.
I try to put things in perspective.
Tackling My Next Project
My time in Athens has also enabled me to progress with the development of my project, working with a group of slum schools in Bangalore, and the creation of a scholarship programme that will help lift some of the pupils of those schools out of poverty. For a commitment of £25 per month for 10 years, people in Europe will be able to fund a scholarship for a promising infant-school child. That scholarship will cover all their education costs including uniforms, school meals, all teaching and materials for the full 10-year span through primary and secondary education.
It’s an exciting project, and the story will be a continuation of this blog later in the year, because it’s another tale of being:-
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