As winter draws in, the situation for refugees in Greece is growing more dire. On the Aegean islands, an icreasing number of people are taking to fragile dinghies and attempting the dangerous sea crossing in search of a better future in Europe, while there is growing evidence of illegal pushbacks and violence on Greek waters.
In Ritsona camp, we’ve witnessed frayed nerves and increasingly low spirits as families wait months and even years for decisions on their futures. Vulnerable groups remain in critical need of sustained psychosocial support.
Until governments are willing to step up to fill the gap in the long term, programmes like the Youth Engagement Space (YES) are still vitally important. Lighthouse Relief is in a priviliged position to assess the needs of those we help, and to ensure that they continue to feel safe and supported, even in the harshest of conditions. We also continue to do our utmost to challenge some of the most damaging misrepresentations of refugees, particularly young men, in the media or public opinion.
We would like to take this occasion to thank you all for supporting us in building a space away from the turmoil and uncertainty, a place where creative, talented young people can regain a sense of belonging and purpose and invest in their long-term futures. We are pleased to announce that we have reached our current funding target for the programme, and plan to focus on enhancing our successful model, going from strength to strength. Meanwhile, our fundraising campaign continues on other fronts, and we encourage you to find out more about the challenges faced by Lighthouse Relief and other small NGOs still operating in Greece.
Those of us who attend the YES on a daily basis are constantly reminded of how lucky we are to be able to work with such talented, dynamic, resilient young people. The peer support network that has been created in the space goes well beyond Ritsona itself: many of the youth have been resettled in Athens or elsewhere in Europe, and new faces appear daily. Those who have left continue to play an active part in our activities, contributing to the magazine and sharing their stories as they move forward with their lives.
Creativity continues to flow freely in the space, and many of our best activities are devised by young participants themselves, from murals and collages to cooking contests. In October, some of the youth came up with the idea of writing, directing and starring in films. What resulted was two weeks of frenzied activity, taking in every aspect of filming and production, and two short films that were aired at a special festival attended by families and friends.
November saw the launch of the fourth edition of the Ritsona Kingdom Journal, a youth-run publication documenting the wealth of ativity in the space. This issue is the biggest yet, with over 20 pages of beautiful artworks, articles, photography and so much more. It features a play depicting a conversation between a father and son on the cause of human suffering, an interview with a young artist, articles by youth who have relocated elsewhere in Europe, and several essays about life in Ritsona camp.
As we head into the winter months, we will ensure that the YES continues to be a programme that young people in camp actively seek out. We will provide an even wider array of workshops and resources to choose from, and expand the reach and potential of the magazine even further. In particular, we aim to focus on enhancing skills that are essential to professional or academic pursuits by providing résumé-building support and tech-based and scientific workshops (computer skills, coding, science etc) and creating an online portfolio system. This is key for them to build their futures, to have access to potential university scholarships and to contribute positively to the communities they will relocate to in the future.
Find us online at lighthouserelief.org to sign up for our monthly newsletter and for more information on the work that we do!
Links:
Thank you for donating to our campaign. Your generous support has enabled us to continue to expand and improve our creative programmes for youth in Ritsona refugee camp in central Greece.
Lighthouse Relief’s Youth Engagement Space (YES), which moved to a larger home in June, now serves as a drop-in centre where young people can continue to partake in creative workshops as well as unwind, read a book, watch a movie or socialise. The new space - with increased storage room for art supplies, snacks, books, and lively decor - provides an ideal setting in which the creative talents of our beneficiaries can flourish. Youth participants of the programme played a leading role in decorating the new physical space, and have actively availed themselves of the drop-in component, creating their own food and entertainment.
The move also allowed the programme to increase its attendance, which rose over the past three months from an average of 10-15 participants per week to an average of 20-35 per week. In order to cater to these increased numbers, Lighthouse Relief has hired and trained a number of new YES volunteers to provide thoughtful supervision of ongoing art projects and additional support for participants who benefit from one-on-one attention. Volunteer-led workshops have ranged from stop-motion animation to computer programming, dance, football and media literacy.
The growing trend of youth ownership and enthusiasm for the YES was best demonstrated around International Youth Day (August 12), when youth drew from what they learned in the space to launch two powerful new projects. Both were structured around the theme of redefining what it means to be a refugee – a topic suggested by youth to help challenge stigma and stereotypes they regularly encounter.
For the first activity, participants were encouraged to engage in discussions about what the word “refugee” means to them, and to personalise “Youth Ritsona” t-shirts with their individual definitions. To complement this, the youth also began work on a large political art piece, which combines the idea of text-based images with their T-shirt definitions.
International Youth Day also saw the official launch of the Ritsona Kingdom Journal, a youth-led magazine that features artwork, writing and photography from young participants of our YES. To help amplify this bold initiative, Lighthouse Relief staff created a dedicated digital exhibit of magazine content which was promoted extensively across our networks. By supporting youth in sharing this compelling body of art and literature, we were able to highlight their talents, opinions and untapped potential to a wider global audience.
Encouragingly, the launch of the magazine garnered significant press coverage and a notable mention in a speech to the United Nations by one of our partners. The attention has galvanised the youth, who are now hard at work on the next edition of the magazine... Find us online at lighthouserelief.org to sign up for our monthly newsletter and more information on the work that we do!
Links:
Project Reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you will get an e-mail when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports via e-mail without donating.
We'll only email you new reports and updates about this project.
