"No matter how many prisons are built, even if the fence is narrowing / our mind is a scumbag that will all escape"

Photos of the day - January 12, 2017

A man climbs an artificial wall of ice in the city of Liberec, Czech Republic; Siberian Tiger plays with one of her 3 cubs  at the Joburg Zoo, Johannesburg, South Africa; and migrant Petram Mehdi, 2, from Tehran, Iran, stands by the window of his family's shelter at the refugee camp of Ritsona about 53 miles north of Athens; Chinese workers display an eight-meter-high giant inflatable chicken resembling Donald Trump in a factory in Jiaxing, China's Zhejiang province; a municipal worker washes a ceramic reproduction of Spanish artist Pablo Picasso's Guernica, in the Basque town of Guernica, northern Spain; a couple cross a bridge as the sun sets at the King Juan Carlos public park in Madrid are some of the photos of the day. (AP/EPA/Getty/Reuters)

Photo credits: David W Cerny/Reuters, KIM LUDBROOK/EPA, Muhammed Muheisen/AP, ZHU JUN/EPA, Vincent West/Reuters, Francisco Seco/AP

Restrictive government decisions have cast thousands of refugees out of protective support services and are creating a hunger crisis, aid groups say.

Just under 18,000 refugees live in camps on the Greek mainland. More than half – 60 percent according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), a United Nations body – have no access to food services or cash handouts. Almost half are children.

That is because last September, the government restricted services to those who are in the process of applying for asylum. Most camp residents do not fit that description.

Some have been granted asylum, and they are entitled to benefits for only 30 days after that decision.

Benefits used to be extended for six months, to support people navigating employment prospects and premises. The government cut that period down in March last year.

Asadullah Sadighi and his 16-year-old daughter, Afghans living in Ritsona camp, a former air force radar base 90km north of Athens, are in this category.

Avrilia Kosmaidou browsed through a leaflet with urns for sale. She wore a long, black, heavy coat with a pearl necklace and glasses. Featured urns come in various designs that sell for up to $443.

As a former worker in the funeral business, Kosmaidou is familiar with death. But the reason for her visit to Greece’s only crematorium — which opened in September 2019 — is personal: She is planning to cremate her best friend of over 40 years.

“Theodora was my sister; I can’t call her just friend," Kosmaidou told The World. "She was suffering [from] lung cancer but she died because of an infection of the respiratory system."

Greece's first and only crematorium is privately owned. That's because even though public crematoriums have been legal since 2006, no municipality has opened one due to a lack of space and pressure from the Greek Orthodox Church, which forbids cremation. (The vast majority of Greek citizens identify as Greek Orthodox, and the church holds considerable political sway.) Lack of space due to poor urban planning is another reason public cremation facilities are not being built. But with cemeteries filling up and the cost of traditional burials on the rise, cremation is the preferred option for a growing number of Greek citizens.

Parwana Amiri first noticed the concrete walls being built around her refugee camp on the Greek mainland one morning a few weeks ago.

“It was a feeling that when we were sleeping, they closed our wings,” the 16-year-old Afghan refugee told Al Jazeera.

“I feel that we will not even be able to see the cars passing the road and will not be able to see the grass outside in nature. We will see the walls around us, it is a very suffocating feeling.”

The grey walls, three metres (10 feet) high, are being built around the Ritsona refugee camp near Athens and there are plans to construct walls around another 24 camps on the Greek mainland.

Authorities have told camp residents that the walls are for their own protection, Amiri claimed.

“They are telling us it’s because of your safety,” she said. “They say that it will not change anything about your life.”

In spite of assurances that daily life will not change for camp residents, a call for tenders, published by the government, reveals extensive measures to amplify security measures in refugee camps across Greece.

Drones patrolling from the sky, magnetic gates with integrated thermographic cameras, X-ray machines and security cameras at the entry and exit points are just some tools that are planned to be implemented.

There are also proposals to close camp gates at about 9pm to prevent people from leaving, according to the Ministry for Migration.

Fifteen years after cremations were legalized in Greece, the country’s first such facility has opened in Ritsona on the island of Evia, and has already carried out 15 cremations.

Licensed in the summer of 2018 and inaugurated on September 30, the private venture is 70 percent owned by Crem Services SA. The nongovernmental Greek Cremation Society (GCS) holds a 30 percent stake.

Speaking to the press at the facility on Thursday, GCS president Antonis Alakiotis hailed its operation as a “historic event.”

As I reflected upon in my last post, it’s been one year since I began volunteering in Ritsona refugee camp with Lighthouse Relief. As I struggle to reconcile my desire to still be in Greece doing the work on the ground, with my reality of needing to stay in the U.S. right now, I am finding new ways to stay involved and further the amazing work of my peers, even from afar. This is the first in a series of interviews with such peers, catching up with them a year after we met to discuss how they are continuing to work with and on behalf of refugees around the world. For this first installment, I chatted with my supervisors in Lighthouse’s Youth Engagement Space (YES), Daphne Morgen and Hannah Brumbaum, about their path from YES to their newest initiative, Youth UnMuted.

Megan Heise: I want to start with where we all were a year ago and bring things up to the present. Could you talk a little about what this time last year looked like for you, particularly in terms of the work you were doing in Ritsona?

Hannah Brumbaum: Almost one year ago to date, Megan you had just joined us in the YES and we were preparing to launch the 3rd edition of the Ritsona Kingdom Journal.

Daphne Morgen: We had also been in our new space for a couple of months, so we were settling in and decorating and creating the space.

MH: I think I knew at the time how relatively new everything was, but as a (nervous) outsider coming in, it felt so warm and established already to me.

DM: That was definitely our goal -- we had just had a landscape architect volunteer assist us in designing the garden which we felt really helped to make the space feel more welcoming. Even the small act of caring for the plants and bringing them in and out every day was a part of our programming.

MH: I know you've talked in other outlets before about this, but I’m wondering if you can give a brief review of what inspired you to start YES in Ritsona?

HB: Truly, it was the lack of programming in Ritsona for young people. and as we began to engage with small numbers of that population, we realized how much the youth needed and wanted a space that was just for them.

The YES began with Daphne, and the tree of hope project, but quickly evolved into a drop-in space that was open daily, and we began to increase the programming in response to whatever the youth expressed an interest in.

Especially in the beginning days, our constant question is "How are you, do you want to chai, what do you feel like doing today?"

MH: I'm thinking of a conversation we all had at one of our meetings, about how people in our lives would sort of be like, "Oh, wow I could never do what you're doing," as a way to appreciate the work but also as a way to sort of absolve themselves from responsibility of doing the same.

HB: Yes, I remember that meeting. we were talking about power dynamics, and our power and ability to leave and go back home, and the response that our families and friends had to our experiences here.

MH: Yeah. And when you talk about YES, and the simplicity of “How are you, do you want tea, what do you want to do,” it makes me think about that. Because obviously you two especially put a lot of really special work and energy into making YES a reality, and also I think there are people out there who might want to get involved but think they, I don't know, can't for some reason. So I'm wondering what thoughts you have, or what you would say, to someone who might want to get involved some way but has that initial attitude of “Wow, I couldn't do that.”

HB: In all of our time working in Greece, a common theme is that youth engagement really is so simple when you break it down.

DM: We approach it in what we feel is a very "common sense" type of approach -- it's basic humanity to ask ppl how they're doing and what they need. And asking them what they need (knowing that this might continually evolve), is how we approached every aspect of creating the programme.

HB: While yes, this is a very vulnerable population, and everyone needs to take care about protection issues and appropriate interactions, I think that many people are just intimidated by the labels attached to the youth that we work with.

This is also really what inspired the youth magazines we have created

MH: Yes! Tell me more about those!

HB: This idea that if everyone could see what we see on a daily basis, they would have their perspectives on these youth completely change.

DM: We know that "refugee" is a highly stigmatized label...as are young Arab men. Many people make an assumption that they are A. Muslim, B. Religious, C. Radicalized. When we know that the truth is -- they're just youth who need to be nurtured and engaged with.

HB: So the Ritsona Kingdom Journal came from this place of youth wanting to share their voices, and have a place to express themselves and show their work with more people than just us and their peers. And also as a way of reframing the conversation and perceptions around these young people.

And this is really an aspect that we chose to dive deeper into with Youth UnMuted

MH: I'd love to know when the idea for Youth UnMuted began, and the journey to manifesting that idea, making it a reality.

DM: Well we began to roll out Storytelling without Borders (StWB) in January 2018, where we used stop motion film making to engage with young people all over Greece.

We were given the overall goal, but left to design the actual workshops and mode of engagement.

So Youth UnMuted really stemmed from wanting to delve deeper into this  style of pop-up workshopping, and storytelling by melding our experience in creating a physical space in the YES and all the best practices we learned there, with continuing to engage with young people in a variety of settings, and aid in giving them a place to create their own narratives.

MH: One thing I'd like to talk more about is something you and I know, but maybe others who aren't steeped in this work perhaps don't, which is how vastly under-resourced (and that feels like a gross understatement) the majority of refugee camps are. You two created the YES space in Ritsona from the ground up, and that lives on and exists still, but maybe other refugee camps do not have an NGO there or someone there to make a YES space, so my understanding is that Youth UnMuted is this, as you describe it, “pop-up” workshop model, and I'm wondering if you can contextualize a little bit the need for that in Greece and globally.

DM: Yes -- when I first was finally given a physical space to begin programming, it was an empty isobox. So we upcycled and built everything from recycled materials, my family and friends made personal donation of art supplies and basic necessities.

The framework of Youth UnMuted, while pop-up, can definitely be replicated and expanded upon by existing programmes and we are happy to aid in this in any way we can.

We've developed a document of best practices that we believe can be utilized by people who want to set up a similar space, or are doing similar pop up workshops.

Because again -- we think that it's very common sense, and you do not need a lot of money or resources to create a simple space for young people to feel safe and engaged.

MH: It's hard to wrap up, because I feel there are so many other things I want to talk with y'all about! But I guess where to end for today would be: if someone is reading this and is really interested and wants to learn more and get involved with Youth UnMuted or this work in general, what are some avenues they could take?

DM: Cough Cough...$$

Haha. Ok but seriously...Promoting and helping us to get a larger readership for the magazine. To further get the voices of these youth shared. Ultimately, that is how people can help -- to think of networks and people within their own lives who may be interested (ie, universities, school curriculum, libraries, etc.)

HB: I will absolutely just second Daphne in what people can do specifically for us. Share the magazine. Read the magazine. Send it to your family and friends. There are thousands of people still arriving in Greece every year and mainstream media has stopped covering the crisis that is still occurring there. People can do so much by simply not forgetting that these youth are even there.

MH: So, for the record, where can people go to donate, and to read and share the magazine?

HB: We currently are able to accept donations in the form of checks made out to St John’s Episcopal in Oakland, and cite Youth UnMuted in the memo line. Checks can be mailed to St John’s Episcopal in Oakland 1707 Gouldin Rd Oakland, CA 94611

DM: And we see youth unmuted expanding beyond Greece, perhaps to those who are resettled in Europe and beyond...and then beyond just displaced populations...but for now...

HB: We want to put together a Youth UnMuted advocates group, if people are interested in joining, that encourages people to hold fundraisers, raise awareness, and stay involved in their communities. This is what we see as so beautiful about Youth UnMuted - we work with the youth on the ground, but our mission of 'elevating youth voices' is only accomplished when people are hearing them. So we see Youth UnMuted and the magazine as a bridge, connecting communities of our peers and larger audiences with the youth.

MH: Y’all are such rockstars! I respect and appreciate so much your relentless commitment to the work and always evolving and nurturing youth (and volunteers like me!) and connecting folks through these pathways.