| Hello jay,
In honor of World Refugee Day, over the course of this week I’m sharing with you conversations I had with four of our team members who traveled across the globe to speak to refugees who are living in the reality of the Global Refugee Crisis. The following is an excerpt from a conversation I had with Reem Khamis, who was a part of the Greece team. Reem is ARC’s Protection Technical Advisor, based at our headquarters in Minneapolis. -Daniel ******************************************************* What is it like to be a refugee in Greece? What are the biggest obstacles that people face? Refugees had high hopes that as soon as they reach Greece, a member of the EU, their suffering will end and they’ll be able to start a new life. The refugees we met were unanimously disappointed in how things turned out for them in Greece. “We didn’t expect to live this life in Europe” is something refugees told us quite often. Refugees are currently hosted in transit sites across Greece with very poor humanitarian standards. In one of the refugee sites we visited, which used to be a military camp located in the middle of a forest, refugees were very afraid of snakes and wild pigs, both of which have been seen in the camp. If you could do or change one thing today for the refugees that you met, what would it be? Refugees lack information about their status in Greece. There is much confusion around how long they will be staying in a specific transit site or in the country in general, what prospects they have in obtaining refugee status in Greece, or their ability to further continue their journey to Germany or Sweden. If there is one thing I could change for refugees in Greece today, I would make sure that they have access to accurate, precise, and comprehensive information about their rights and options - whether it is seeking asylum in Greece, returning to their countries of origin, or being resettled in other European countries. I would also make sure that such information is provided in all refugee spoken languages including Arabic, Farsi and Urdu. How are Greeks dealing with the crisis? What kinds of responses did you see? We had the chance to work closely with an amazing national Greek organization as well as different groups of international volunteers who were highly driven and motivated to provide urgent humanitarian assistance to refugees. Most of these individuals were responding to the needs of refugees alone, had no previous experience, and were introduced by ARC to international humanitarian principles for the first time.
[stay tuned this week for more conversations: http://www.arcrelief.org/wrdqanda]
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