Help LHR Continue its Vital Programming in Greece

A happy and healthy New Year from all of us at Lighthouse Relief! 

As we take stock of all we have been able to achieve over the past year, in spite of the enormous challenges we have faced, we know none of this would have been possible without your steadfast support.

As we enter the second month of 2021, we are happy to share this update on what you have enabled us to achieve in the past few months. Since our last report, we have been busy, both in Ritsona Camp and in Athens, where we launched a brand new Emergency Response Project to meet urgent needs on the mainland. 

Ritsona Camp: Providing Crucial Psychosocial Support through a National Lockdown

When we last reached out to you, we shared that Ritsona Camp faced another lockdown in September. Though we were able to restart our activities in October, Greece implemented its second national lockdown in November. Thanks to our team’s strong reputation for COVID-safe policies across all our programming, we were granted permission to continue our Child Friendly Space and Youth Engagement Space in Ritsona Camp despite the lockdown. With the vital help of our Resident Volunteers, we have been able to provide safe and supportive spaces for children aged three and four, as well as youth aged 15 and up, to socialise, learn and express themselves. 

This is the third lockdown for camp residents, and it has further increased their stress and isolation. It has been a very difficult year and challenging past few months for residents in the camp, and the increased stress risks can take a toll on the mental health of an already vulnerable group. 

In our Child Friendly Space, our team is holding activities indoors and enforcing strict sanitation procedures, as well as mask-wearing and “washy washy,” otherwise known as hand sanitisation. In the past months, we welcomed an average of 67 children weekly, ages 3 and 4, who delighted in colourful crafts-making activities, singing songs, as well as discovering the various toys and books selected by our team to help stimulate their imaginations.

In addition to this, Resident Volunteers, with the support of the Resident Volunteer Programme Facilitator, and CFS staff, have been facilitating emotional regulation exercises for the children in the space. These take the form of playful and engaging activities which introduce simple breathing and stretching exercises, to give the children some basic tools to quiet their minds, relax their muscles and reduce stress. 

The psychosocial support we provide has been especially crucial in these past months. The majority of children in the camp have not had access to a single day of formal education in 2020. Our team is determined to continue to provide the highest quality informal learning and play to these young residents at such a crucial stage of their development.

In our Youth Engagement Space, we continue to provide a space for residents to unwind, socialise and receive informal support. The YES team were happy to continue to offer support through their drop-in center and activities such as chess, table tennis and the ever-popular foosball. English language workshops, meanwhile, have continued on the Youth Online Space, where our YES Facilitator is also gathering and sharing resources, including an online library where residents can access books and other materials in English, French, Arabic and Farsi. 

As with the CFS, Resident Volunteers are playing a vital role in ensuring the running of the YES. From helping the team to manage the space, and ensuring the respect of anti-COVID measures such as mask-wearing and regular hand sanitising, to facilitating their own creative workshops, the RVs are invaluable to our team. 

In the past months, we have been particularly inspired to see how our newly formalised Resident Volunteer Programme continues to grow. RVs have participated in trainings on topics such as  Emotional Regulation, Conflict Mediation, and Workshop Facilitation These trainings support them in their roles, while equipping them with tools that can help them build towards their futures. They are a crucial part of our programming, strengthening our relationship with the community and enriching our activities, ensuring that activities are accountable and culturally sensitive.  

Our Emergency Response Team Launches a new Project to Support Asylum Seekers and Refugees in Athens

Since we formally ceased our operations on Lesvos, our Emergency Response (ER) team has been working tirelessly to pivot our operations to meet increased needs on the Greek mainland. In the past months, they undertook an in-depth research process, meeting with a dozen other organisations doing important work all across Greece, with the aim of identifying the most pressing needs for refugees, and any operational gaps that exist. It was clear that significant needs were developing on the mainland, in particular for recognised refugees. 

In March 2020, the Greek government cut the support that refugees could access after they receive a positive asylum decision. Whereas refugees previously had six months of financial and housing support in order to find their own accommodation, get a social security number, and seek employment, they now only have 30 days to do so.

When this new regulation took effect at the end of May, over 11,000 refugees in these so-called “exit schemes” were left without any support — with even their scarce cash assistance taken away, and were forced to seek housing in the middle of a pandemic. Many recognised refugees, including thousands transferred from the islands, were left struggling with homelessness, living on the streets in the middle of a crowded square in Athens. 

In response, our team designed a pilot project deploying a skilled streetwork team to provide support to refugees, asylum seekers and migrants experiencing homelessness or living in precarious conditions. In December, we launched the pilot phase of this project, setting out to provide vulnerable people with essential items, information, and referral to other services. Through the month-long pilot phase, the ER team supported a total of 145 people, including 61 families, distributing 45 non-food items and 166 “first contact” kits, including croissants and juice. 

These needs will only increase this year, as asylum seekers are transferred to the mainland and asylum procedures are sped up.  

In the coming months, we will continue to build out our programming in Ritsona Camp, and re-launch our Sports Programme, targeting children aged six to 15. In Athens, we continue to help vulnerable individuals, including refugees, and asylum seekers, taking the learnings from our pilot phase to strengthen our approach. On an organisational level, we are in the process of developing a three-year strategic plan, which will consolidate our mission and chart the next 36 months of our programming.

Finally, we would like to thank you for everything you do to make this work possible. We look to the future with optimism,  knowing that with your support, we are stronger and more determined than ever.  

Links:

• Our Website

The last months in Greece have been marked by momentous shifts for asylum seekers and refugees; from COVID-19 restrictions to increased insecurity on the Aegean Islands, it is more important than ever to continue providing support to people seeking asylum in Greece.

When we last shared an update with you, we had suspended our in-person programming in Ritsona Camp and on Lesvos due to COVID-19 restrictions. On Lesvos, a small team of our long term volunteers remained on the north shore to support new arrivals with essential items, in coordination with our partners. In Ritsona Camp, we were supporting youth through an online space, while also planning ways to restart our activities in a safe way.

Since then, much has changed for us and for our teams in Greece. We invite you to take a look at how our programmes have evolved since then - how we have navigated the challenges of the past months, as well as difficult decisions with which we have grappled.

Ritsona Camp: A Digital Space & Restarting Activities

Ritsona Camp, mainland Greece, is now home to almost 3,000 people - more than four times its population in 2017. Thanks to your support through the years, in 2019, we reached 55 percent of the camp’s residents through our Youth Engagement and Child Friendly spaces.

The last few months have seen unprecedented challenges in Ritsona, for residents and for our team. Throughout the suspension of our in-person activities, we continued to support the residents of the camp in any way we could - establishing an online support space, and supporting partners in camp in a large food basket distribution. As lockdown measures began to ease in Greece in the late summer, our team was thrilled to be able to return to relaunch our in-person activities in Ritsona Camp in early August.

After over four months of quarantine, our physical spaces in camp were in urgent need of rebuilding and restructuring - from new flooring and weatherproofing, to walkways and electrical work. Our Ritsona team worked directly with the community from the start to revamp our spaces, building a new roof and fence completely from scratch.

Despite the past months being a difficult time for Ritsona, we were moved and grateful to see the youth coming together - rebuilding these spaces not only for their peers, but also for the youngest generations of camp residents: “several youth told me this week they wanted to be part of rebuilding Lighthouse because it is a place for everyone, and we should all work together to get it open as soon as possible,” our YES Manager shared.

While rebuilding the space, the YES also adopted new strategies to make sure that our programming is safe and socially distant, integrating more seating areas to accommodate the growing number of youth in the space since the expansion of 2020

When we launched our in-person activities in the Child Friendly Space, we also made significant changes to ensure that our programming would be safe and COVID-19 friendly. We focused on the age group of 3-4 years old, as they have no other formal or non-formal educational activity available to them, and they cannot go to Greek schools - at this crucial development phase, children need opportunities to play and learn in a safe space. In order to make sure our spaces are safe, our CFS team cleans and sanitises the spaces three times a day, also sanitising any toys used, and distributing hand sanitiser to our young visitors. Our reopening of the CFS would not have been possible without your support these past months!

Another exciting development in the past months has been the launching of our formalised Lighthouse Relief's Resident Volunteer Programme (RVP). Our Resident Volunteers have played a critical role in our psychosocial support activities in Ritsona Camp for the past two years, and this August, we launched a formalised version of the programme to offer in-depth training and skills-building.

In early September, we were disheartened when Ritsona was placed under a lockdown due to cases of Corona in the camp. Throughout this time, we have been preparing for restarting our activities in the camp while providing as much remote psychosocial support as possible. Our Resident Volunteer Facilitator has been finding innovative ways to provide psychosocial support and training to our Resident Volunteers remotely. Through pre-recorded videos, skills practice and online resources, she has been offering training on coping skills building, including tools such as self-compassion, gratitude, and journaling.

Lesvos: Increasing Insecurity & Uncertainty for Asylum Seekers & Refugees

In the past seven months, we have contended with some of the most significant challenges of our five years on Lesvos.

In March, asylum seekers arriving to the north shore were also impacted by preventative measures against Coronavirus; we continued to search for ways that we could continue to support them. Due to the extremely high tensions in early March, we had suspended our emergency response programme, and we had to continue this suspension due to preventative measures against COVID-19. During this time, new arrivals were often kept for weeks in isolated areas on the north shore for a mandatory quarantine period, without access to running water, or suitable accommodation. Due to the Coronavirus restrictions, we could not directly access new arrivals, so we provided food, clothes, and other items to the people through one of our partners in the north who was permitted to access these sites.

In May 2020, the situation changed further for people arriving on the north shore. An area on the north shore that was built in 2015 as a camp started to be used as a quarantine area. Anyone who arrived was tested for COVID-19, and then transferred to this quarantine camp at Apanemo to stay two weeks - though some groups stayed well over a month. The camp remains an extremely low-resource setting, with no running water or electricity, little access to medical care, and difficulty in isolating from other people; only the authorities and UNHCR had access to this facility. After this quarantine period, people were transferred to the south of the island where they could register their asylum claims.

Through this time, we were able to consistently provide packs of essential items to people waiting in the quarantine camp (distributed by a partner). Since May, at least 504 people stayed at this quarantine camp, according to UNHCR numbers. One quarter of them were under 18. In order to support new mothers and the specific nutritional needs of newborns and young children, we were able to provide packs including baby milk, baby bottles, diapers and other hygiene items (also with a donation of items from another NGO on the island).

In early September, asylum seekers on Lesvos were pushed into an even more precarious situation when fires devastated Moria Camp, where over 12,000 refugees and asylum seekers were residing. The day after the fires, we immediately supported our partners in the south of the island with urgently needed items, such as bottles of water, baby food, and dry food, and continued to advocate for a swift, humane and safe solution for people staying on the streets of Lesvos. 

A Difficult Decision for Our Lesvos Team

Unfortunately, as the changes we described reflect, the process for people arriving to Lesvos has become increasingly militarised. As recent news reports confirm, the illegal practice of pushbacks has significantly increased in the Aegean Sea - this has made it nearly impossible for people to seek asylum, a right to which they’re entitled by international law, and has greatly reduced the numbers of arrivals to Lesvos.

With these changes, the role of NGOs like ours in the context of arrivals became extremely limited. Though we continued to help in any way we could, it is no longer possible for us to provide the same dignified emergency response that we committed to in September of 2015, five years ago. After much deliberation and painful discussions, we recently made the decision to formally cease our Emergency Response operations and to withdraw from the village of Skala Sikamineas, the tiny fishing village that is the base of our operations. To learn more about this decision, we invite you to visit us online here.

In the short-term, we have focused on distributing needed items from our warehouse in the north to other organisations across the island, particularly in this time of acute need on Lesvos. In the long term, we are identifying the biggest needs both on Lesvos and on the mainland of Greece, to see how we can respond to the short-term and the long-term impacts of the fire, which are vast and multi-faceted.

The Immeasurable Impact of Your Support

We want to conclude with a wholehearted thank you for your support - not only in the past months, but since we launched this project years ago. It is thanks to your support that we have been able to provide a dignified emergency response on Lesvos for the past five years. You have also enabled us to continue providing psychosocial support in Ritsona Camp - where it is more needed than ever.

As we look forward to our next endeavours, we are humbled by your compassion, solidarity, and support - for this and so much more, thank you.

Links:

• Read Our Statement: A Farewell to the North