Refugees in the Balkans
Donation protected
I am fundraising for No Name Kitchen, an organisation I have volunteered for in both Bosnia and Serbia. This is an official fundraiser for the charity in Great British Pounds (there operations are based in Spain so other fundraisers are in Euros).
Started in February 2017 in Belgrade, NNK started to provide food and kitchen resources in order to cover, at least partially, the basic needs of all the refugees who lived in the old barracks of the train station. In collaboration with them, we got to distribute more than 500 meals per day, in a time period where the temperature dropped to -20º.
On May 10th, 2017, the Serbian government evicted and demolished the barracks, which meant that more than a thousand people were dispersed and forced to enter in the camp system or, in the measure of possible, in the asylum system. We moved our operation to the town of Šid near the Croatian border, where the number of people living outside of the camp system grew.
Now we have operations in different countries. Along with Šid we have two places in Bosnia (Bihać and Velika Kladusa), a base in Patras in Greece and Mililla (a Spanish city in Morocco), and have involvement now in Montenegro. The needs of people-on-the-move differ in each location but the activities we cover include providing food, clothing and equipment for survival. We also have a heath programme for both first aid and providing more serious medical treatment and we are also a founding member of the Border Violence Monitoring Network - we report the illegal actions of police and other authorities.
Personally, I left Bihać just as it was beginning to get cold. The situation there is grave, police hostility towards people-on-the-move and volunteers means that items are destroyed, camps are over-crowded and are in no way suitable for winter. In the mountains, a blanket means the difference between life and death.
For more information about my story with NNK, take a look at www.hannahparry.co.uk and for more information about NNK take a look at www.nonamekitchen.org
Started in February 2017 in Belgrade, NNK started to provide food and kitchen resources in order to cover, at least partially, the basic needs of all the refugees who lived in the old barracks of the train station. In collaboration with them, we got to distribute more than 500 meals per day, in a time period where the temperature dropped to -20º.
On May 10th, 2017, the Serbian government evicted and demolished the barracks, which meant that more than a thousand people were dispersed and forced to enter in the camp system or, in the measure of possible, in the asylum system. We moved our operation to the town of Šid near the Croatian border, where the number of people living outside of the camp system grew.
Now we have operations in different countries. Along with Šid we have two places in Bosnia (Bihać and Velika Kladusa), a base in Patras in Greece and Mililla (a Spanish city in Morocco), and have involvement now in Montenegro. The needs of people-on-the-move differ in each location but the activities we cover include providing food, clothing and equipment for survival. We also have a heath programme for both first aid and providing more serious medical treatment and we are also a founding member of the Border Violence Monitoring Network - we report the illegal actions of police and other authorities.
Personally, I left Bihać just as it was beginning to get cold. The situation there is grave, police hostility towards people-on-the-move and volunteers means that items are destroyed, camps are over-crowded and are in no way suitable for winter. In the mountains, a blanket means the difference between life and death.
For more information about my story with NNK, take a look at www.hannahparry.co.uk and for more information about NNK take a look at www.nonamekitchen.org
Organizer
Hannah Parry
Organizer
England
