Home for All – Isola di Lesbo, Grecia

Home For All

L’ attuale situazione rifugiati in Europa è la crisi umanitaria più grande dopo la seconda guerra mondiale e sta avendo un impatto fortissimo su milioni di persone e di famiglie.

Vista la sua posizione geografica, l’ isola di Lesbo in Grecia è diventata un punto di riferimento cruciale per i rifugiati che passano dalla Turchia per arrivare poi in Europa in cerca di un futuro migliore.

Da aprile 2015, più di 700000 rifugiati provenienti da Siria, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, e a volte anche dall’ Africa, sono arrivati dalla Tuchia a Lesbo cercando asilo.

A settembre 2019 siamo quindi andati ad offrire il nostro aiuto come volontari ad Home for All, un progetto nato dalla generosità di Nikos e Katerina, proprietari di un piccolo ristorante greco, i quali nel 2014 iniziarono a distribuire pasti ai migranti.

Il loro ristorante si è ora trasformato in una comunità dove i rifugiati trovano sollievo dallo stress di vivere in campi sovraffollati e dove vengono trattati con umanità.

Tramite il nostro lavoro con gli oli essenziali, siamo venuti a conoscenza dei progetti a cui doTerra collabora per aiutare durante questa crisi, e ci siamo sentiti chiamati a fare la nostra parte.

Questa crisi sta avendo luogo alle porte di casa nostra e stare solo a guardare non ci bastava più.

Questa esperienza ci ha profondamente toccato, insegnandoci tanto e riempiendoci il cuore fino a farlo straboccare…

Sono state settimane intense ed indelebili che ci hanno cambiato per sempre.

Abbiamo distribuito cibo nell’enorme campo rifugiati di Moria, abbiamo giocato e cantato con i bambini, distribuito sacchi a pelo, abbracciato con le lacrime agli occhi decine e decine di persone, abbiamo cercato di imparare il farsi e di insegnare l’inglese ai ragazzini, abbiamo fatto yoga con donne e ragazze, abbiamo ascoltato le loro storie, visto i loro occhi accendersi di gratitudine per un piatto di cibo caldo ed una felpa da indossare la sera, e abbiamo condiviso con molti anche un momento di pericolo e paura dopo l’incendio avvenuto al campo, in cui ci siamo sentiti più che mai UNITI nella nostra umanità, al di là delle differenze culturali e sociali in cui troppo spesso tendiamo a riconoscerci.

Qui condividiamo alcune foto e commenti che abbiamo già condiviso anche sui social per aprire anche per te, che stai leggendo, una finestra su questa realtà.
Home for All è sostentato esclusivamente dalle donazioni e dal lavoro dei volontari.

Se anche tu vuoi fare la tua parte prendere parte a questo progetto, dona oggi!

Insieme, possiamo fare moltissimo!

Nikos e Katerina
HOME FOR ALL
IBAN: GR4301107620000076200228708
(SWIFT/BIC: ETHNGRAA)

Grazie di cuore. ❤️

This week I was so lucky to be co-teaching some yoga classes for refugee women. We relaxed with some oils, we moved, we danced, we shared love and deep connection… It was simply amazing. Yoga indeed is a universal language. During shavasana, a little Syrian girl took my hand… And a swirling of emotions came up. I will forever treasure this moment in my heart. Why can it not be as simple as holding hands?

😪🙌

Thanks to my dear friend Kim van Rossum for quietly capturing this moment in all its beauty 💕

We are all the same. Our eyes, our smiles, our hopes, our dreams. Let love be our guide ❤ 🙌

#refugees #volunteering #homeforall #greece #giveback #hope #doterra #withlove

Dopo l’incendio di domenica, circa 160 tra donne e bambini ieri erano ancora senza un posto dove stare, buttati per terra a dormire, all’aperto. Le notti hanno iniziato ad essere fresche e lunghe ed è stato richiesto l’aiuto di Nikos Katerina di Home for All per portare i sacchi a pelo donati da #doterra, proprio per dar fronte a queste emergenze. 🙌

Così ieri pomeriggio abbiamo caricato il van e abbiamo portato i sacchi a pelo dove ce n’era bisogno. E poi, un po’ di giochi con i bambini, con quegli occhi grandi e sempre pronti a sorridere. ❤

We had some hectic days in Lesvos. There was a big fire at the camp on Sunday, followed by riots between refugees and police. At least 2 people lost their lives in the fire, and the situation is still tense. The camp, build for 3000 people, hosts 13000+ people at the moment, with new refugees arriving every single day! The situation is terrible. The camp is overcrowded. To give you an idea, in what could be a single western bedroom, actually live families of even 6,8,10 people. It’s an emergency situation, you may think, and indeed it is…

However, why people are forced to stay in Moria for as long as YEARS? Where are the money of the other European countries going, money that would allow those people to be moved to different countries, to get integrated into society, to get a job, and so on?

In the past weeks we heard people at cafes talking about the situation. We heard people saying things like “if they are refugees, where did they get the money to travel?”, as if refugees were not people like us in their countries… As if they had no jobs, no study titles, no hobbies, as if they were “category B” people before going to Greece. This talking let us puzzled, sad, and frustrated. Is it really so hard to understand?

Despite the difficulties and the hard life at the camp, reaching Greece is for the refugees a first milestone that opens new possibilities for the future. You can really see hope in the eyes of some… Maybe those who haven’t been in there too long, or who were told they can finally leave for mainland.

However, being inside the camp during riots was a touching experience and it took us back to the full roughness of reality. People were protesting because firefighters didn’t enter the camp for the first 20 minutes of the fire. People irrupted into a protected section (where we were happening to be, distributing food to sick people) because they were carrying the bodies that THEY, the refugees, had just rescued from the burnt down containers. They were frightened, angry, powerless against what was happening. We were scared too, stones were thrown, people were screaming and children crying. We were blocked into the closed section, and the only known way out was exactly were the riot was happening… there was no way to go back down there. So the women of the section helped us to escape from the protected area. They led us to the lateral conteintment and helped us down from the wall, under the barb wire. I thanked my years of yoga and myndfulness for keeping all my senses at 1million% and allowing me not to panic. We were out, safe and sound. Unfortunately it wasn’t the same for that mother and her baby, and many other people who were injured and lost their tent or container.

Being part of the Home for All volunteer team it’s been an incredible gift, and if I had to summarize it in a few words, I would say that, when you are personally touched by this tragic reality, you can either decide to pretend it’s not happening, or you embrace the situation and dedicate your life to the cause, as Nikos and Katerina do every day. In both cases your life will never be the same, whether you like it or not. 🙌

With this post I simply desire to let you know what happens away from cameras, TV, newspapers. What happens just behind the corner and, in some form, in Italy as well. I’m totally humbled by this experience, and also full of questions that I’m afraid will stay unanswered for a while.

Now it’s time for processing and resting. My body aches for all the emotions stored, my heart is full till the rim and life definitely has a new perspective.

Thanks to all the magnificent people we shared these weeks with, we have certainly left Lesvos with many new friends for life ❤

This island, full of contrast between its beauty and the camp situation, between the big, big heart of those who help, the smile always on their face, and the dreams of those who have nothing. You will see from my pictures.

We will forever be thankful for being able to see with our eyes and touch with our hands.