A joint Palestinian and Israeli team from our Center for Applied Environmental Diplomacy and Damour for Community Development is currently visiting refugee shelters established by Movement On The Ground in Greece in order to learn from their expertise. Our Jumpstarting Hope in Gaza initiative is aspiring to implement some of the lessons to be learned during this trip in the refugee camps it supports in Gaza. Follow this page for updates from the delegation.
Day 1 - Sunday, November 3rd
After meeting our hosts from Movement on the Ground (MOTG) at the Athens airport, our team drove to the center of Athens for a wonderful Greek lunch in a restaurant with a gorgeous view of the Acropolis. After lunch we visited a young men’s shelter in an area populated by many migrants. The shelter was established in an old Victorian house to respond to the lack of facilities for asylum seekers after they leave one of the children’s shelters established by the government. At age 18 young asylum seekers are left to fend for themselves, without a support system or the legal right to work, often leading them into homelessness. MOTG brings these young men from countries in Africa and Asia to the shelter from streets and parks. We were given an extensive tour of the building, and were introduced to some of the residents by the house parents of the shelter, which doesn’t only provide a roof over their head, but rather aims to teach self-reliance and basic housekeeping and life skills. A condition for staying in the shelter is the willingness to engage in self-improvement, including learning the Greek language. Finding a job for each asylum seeker is a priority but first requires helping them through the bureaucratic process to get their work permits. While the ultimate goal is for the residents to leave the shelter and become independent, each person is treated individually so the length of residents’ stay can differ. MOTG’s approach is to treat the asylum seekers with respect, and provide support according to individual needs.
Day 2 - Monday, November 4th
Our joint Palestinian-Israeli Jumpstarting Hope in Gaza Team spent the morning hearing from one of the founders of Movement on the Ground, Adil Izimarane, about how a group of Dutch friends were so moved by the shocking picture of Alan Kurdi’s little body washed ashore on the island of Lesvos, Greece, after attempting the treacherous 12 kilometer crossing of the Aegean Sea from Turkey, that they came to Lesvos from Holland to volunteer. They came for just a week but ended up founding an organization to build and manage refugee camps. Movement on the Ground was founded in 2015 and has now established missions in countries all over the world. Through trial and error and a “never accept no for an answer” perseverance, MOTG challenged traditional international aid practices and institutions by not treating refugees as people to be handled but as people with agency. Realizing that the most important asset MOTG had to build, manage, and organize refugee camps so they provided not only basic needs but also dignity and empowerment, are the refugees themselves. Often they know better than the aid agency what they need. In one of their first interventions in the Moira Camp, when MOTG asked a group of male refugees what they needed most to improve their lives, expecting to hear more food, better tents, clothes etc., they were surprised to hear that internet was the most critical need. People were desperate to know what is going on in the world, and to be able to connect with their parents. After MOTG managed through very creative solutions to provide internet to the camp, this bought them credit and trust, and enabled MOTG to work with the refugees to set up a door to door food distribution program with the refugees themselves, in order to replace the chaotic and time consuming food distribution system of the international aid agencies. Over the years MOTG’s belief that every problem has a solution guided them to create a new model of refugee camps called “Camps to Campuses” through empowerment and recognizing the skills which the refugees themselves bring with them, turning camps into spaces of learning, creativity, and hope. Sadly, in 2020, the Moria Camp erupted in violence due to draconian restrictions placed on the refugees by the Greek Government during the Covid19 crisis. The result was the complete destruction of the camp including the section of the camp which MOTG had managed. After many days of a stand off with refugees in the streets of Lesvos, a new site was established in a former army firing range near the sea. MOTG was asked to be part of the design team for the new camp. Yesterday, after our introduction to MOTG’s history, we visited the site of the destroyed Moira camp and also a community center set up by MOTG to serve the new camp, Mavrovouni.
Day 3 - Tuesday, November 5th
Our joint Jumpstarting Hope in Gaza team accompanied the Movement on the Ground (MOTG) team for a visit in the Mavrovouni Refugee Camp. We had the opportunity to see the human drama of the refugee experience as dozens of refugees from Sudan, Syria, Eritrea, Yemen, and other places. who had just arrived the night before, were received into the camp, registered, and given clean clothes and hygiene kits. We visited the MOTG Hub where volunteers from abroad and from within the camp served tea, cut hair, tailored clothing, and facilitated online courses. There are dozens of NGOs working in the camp, each one with its own specialization and services it offers to camp residents from legal aid to laundry services to health care. MOTG has focused on single young men, who are among the camp’s most vulnerable population but are often paid the least attention by other NGOs and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Meeting these young men on the ground, offering them opportunities to engage, to have agency over themselves and their future, and to become leaders in their community is how MOTG is turning a refugee camp into a campus for learning how to start their new lives. While we sat at lunch with two young men from Syria, they told us about the frightening conditions they faced in Syria, the reasons they left, not wishing to die and not wishing to have to kill to survive. They also told us about the harrowing conditions they faced in Turkey, prompting them to risk their lives to cross from Turkey to Lesvos in smuggler supplied rubber dinghies. One of them, when asked how they feel now that they are here in Lesvos, replied “safe”.
