In order to help arriving and stranded refugees from war-torn countries and to show solidarity with the totally overwhelmed Greek society, Echo100Plus has set up a platform for volunteers coming to Greece from all over the globe. Since September 2015 we have had more than 600 volunteers from 30 different nations.
Although the number of arriving refugees in Greece has dropped since the EU-Turkey Agreement in March 2016, there are still hundreds of people arriving daily. Currently there are 15.700 people stuck in deplorable conditions in the so called Hotspot camps on the Aegean islands, awaiting their asylum applications to be processed, which takes 9 months in average, but there are people, who have been stuck in the camps for more than 2 years.
With the help of our volunteers we strive to alleviate the daily life of those stuck in the camps for an indefinite amount of time - we distribute food, clothes and hygiene items and organise educational and recreational activities to counter post-traumatic stress, boredom and depression, that are bound to lead to social unrest, if not met.
As we cannot influence the reasons, why people flee their countries, the only option left is to prepare the civil society for the growing challenges. By facilitating the encounter with people fleeing war-torn countries to find protection in Europe, we hope to undermine the angst-inducing tactics of spreading populism and to contribute to the formation of a civil society, that reacts and acts when European politics and authorities are failing to meet standards of a humanitarian response.
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).
