Nicola Baloch, 3.1.2017
I am you
Here is to the great team that just spent a week in greece together. safely back in austria we look back on a great convoy packed with spontaneous yet well planned hands-on activities to support burdened and tired refugees as well as long-term volunteers in the thessaloniki area. among the support we provided was the one month food supply for the yezidi refugee community of 500 people in serres, the assessment of needs and distribution of hygenic supplies, nutrituous food like honey, fruit, joghurt etc. , kettles, baby clothes, teas, lice shampoo, material for cleaning mold as well as underwear/bras/hijabs, etc. for 34 vulnerable families with newborns and highly pregnant women accommodated in a hotel. we supported the soul food kitchen in cooking for homeless refugees and the truck shop in the refugee warehouse with funds to build and expand their dignified distribution system and help in the distribution of the clothes itself, took assorted specific donations to individual families in the camps, sponsored cold medication, cleaned a huge abondoned and incredibly dirty building which serves as emergency shelter for those in transit, had a silvester/birthday party together with the volunteers in thessaloniki including clean up the next day 😉
we laughed and cried, had good and sad experiences, worked and grew together as a team, met wonderful people who received us with amazing hospitality and learnt a lot about resilience and empathy. in short we worked hard, had fun, delivered humanity and solidarity and generally got back much more than we gave. thanks to you as team for your trust in me as coordinator.
we volunteers from accross the world may be weak in numbers and financial capacity but rich in love and values and far from naiv. our work is political in the sense that we are not desinterested bystanders but get active and take a stand for humanity by caring for those who lost everything in an increasingly cold and hostile world. when i asked the birthday-child at midnight of 01.01.2017 what he wished for in the new year he answered „for all the people to go back to syria soon and live in peace once again“
special thanks to all the donors who support our work and in this way make it possible.
Graz:Spendenkonvoi 