Get a mobile library to refugee camps in Greece

Hello there everyone,

as the world seems to be pulling itself apart we do our best to continue our work here in the camps around Athens. Busy sessions, many books and requests, a lot of chess and dominoes. We have been asked for novels, Charles Dickens and the history of Africa right the way through to Kant in Arabic. The books that we brought back from Cairo, featuring many new books by Sudanese writers and about Sudan have disappeared from the library like hotcakes. We only hope that they will be returned...

The sessions are varied, light-hearted and keep the coordinators on their toes regarding requests. One recent request was a mother in Thiva camp who regularly asks for PDF print-offs in order to teach her children Arabic. She tells us, "we came to Europe to offer our children a future. My children will learn here in Europe, but they will also learn their own culture and study Arabic, they are even getting online lessons!"

Recently a new collective called the Camp Network has published a short report (re)introducing the dire reality that people are faced with living in whilst their asylum claims are examined. We have attached it to this message for anyone who would like to read more. It includes information on a protest that happened at Oinofyta where Kurdish families were trying to submit complaints firstly about the huge delay in their asylum claim and secondly their treatment at the hands of the camp manager. Since this protest we are happy to observe that the majority of the families got their applications accepted, but others have not been so fortunate. 

Another report just released describes the horror that some asylum seekers and migrants have faced at the border - being forced by the Greek border police to participate in pushing back other migrants who make it over the land border between Greece and Turkey. Pushbacks have been widely reported on for many years, although the Greek government denies using this tactic, illegal under international law. This new report goes deeper, showing how the most vulnerable and frightened people that enter Europe have their language skills weaponised to continue the illegal and violent activity of pushbacks. 

As we mentioned in our previous report it is 10 years this year since ECHO library first rolled out of its parking spot to the camps in northern Greece. As part of the celebrations our most dedicated (and mad) volunteer Tulsi is walking 100km in 24hours with her friend Carla next month. Their aim is to help raise enough money to be able to provide ECHO with money to buy a new van when we need it. Please consider supporting them or sharing their amazing campaign with friends and family. 

As always, thank you for your continued support for our library. We could not continue this work without you.

Becka & Giulio

Links:

• We Are Solomon - forced illegal pushbacks

• Camp Report 1 2026 (PDF)
  

Yes, it sounds unbelievable but in the second half of 2026, ECHO will be 10.

From starting out of a disused petrol station near the border with North Macedonia in 2016, ECHO went through many transformations and adapted to an ever-changing asylum system. At its core, ECHO retained its values: a strong sense of solidarity towards people stuck in isolated, overcrowded and substandard refugee camps in the Greek countryside, a lean structure, and a balance between the library's practical work and a more conscious positioning within the context of solidarity organizations.

First of all, we wanted to reassure all our donors that our project is back live on GlobalGiving, after renewing our due diligence documentation. Thanks for your messages in these past weeks.

As we approach our first ten years ECHO needs your support more than ever, but let's get back to where we left in our last report: after the summer, we restarted our weekly sessions in the refugee camps of Malakasa, Oinofyta, Ritsona and Thiva, in Platia VIctoria in Athens and our biweekly session in Corinth. We also continued visiting the self-organised camp in Lavrio. Sessions have been busy, following the large number of arrivals of the summer months. 

In the summer we were told we had been granted funding for a very special project: the production of a book and podcast about the situation in Sudan, to be prepared together with a local group, Mataris - Sudan Solidarity Committee. In the past months, we have been working on this and we're excited to carry on. Expect more news in the next reports! And check Mataris out on social media - they do a very important work on shining a light on both what's happening in Sudan and the conditions for people arriving in Greece.

In October, our library Monsier René van suffered a major breakdown on the way to one of our sessions. Sadly, this revealed underlying problems that we are still trying to solve. Engine parts, battery, turbo, diesel injectors... the garage bill keeps growing. This has also left us without our beloved library for many weeks. Alas, we still ran most of our sessions, borrowing friends' vans, using our personal vehicles, partnering with local community centres and focusing on maintaining relationships with our readers. Even without our van, sessions kept being busy and lively. Nonetheless, the absence of our René was deeply felt, as it has been missing sessions for some of the coldest weeks of the year, when the chill winter air is felt especially by our readers, often unable to afford decent winter clothes and with camps' authorities refusing to organise much needed distributions.

As of February 2026, we are still waiting for the latest news about the prognosis of beloved René.

For the good news, our coordination duo managed to source a very large number of books in Arabic, English Persian, Turkish and Bangla, to refresh our catalogue and continue to provide interesting reading material. Between October 2025 and January 2026, we bought over 300 new Arabic books (fiction, non-fiction and poetry for both teenagers and adults), friends brought us books from Istanbul and Bangladesh, we got a large donation of books from the closing Failtè Centre here in Athens, and we are waiting for and even larger delivery of English books donated by Book Aid!

For now that's it. We hope everyone had a positive start of the year, despite the state of global affairs. Thanks again for your support and keep thinking about our library!

LOVE IDEAS - LOVE YOUR LIBRARY

ECHO's team

• Our 2025 Annual Report (PDF)