We Are Here Women's Space
Donation protected
Today is International Women’s Day.
A day to celebrate, but also to acknowledge the current situation, consider carefully and take action.
An essential part of We Are Here 's work on the Nea Kavala refugee camp in Northern Greece is the Women’s Space: A safe space for all women in which they can feel appreciated, freely express their emotions and feel autonomous and independent through their participation in English classes and social activities.
It’s a space to empower, educate and connect.
In the upcoming month, we are expecting a drastic influx of camp residents due to transfers from the Greek islands. This urges our organisation to prepare for much higher attendance in each of our offered activities, which we cannot achieve without receiving financial support from caring donators to purchase required material to respond to our most crucial needs.
These are as follows :
A projector : approx. 100€ / 85£ / 112US$ / 150CAD$
- This would not only be useful in the classrooms, it would permit to organize movie projections.
Speakers : approx. 150€ x 2 / 85US$ x 2 / 115CAD$ x 2 / 65£ x 2
- We only have small portable speakers at the moment that don’t cover the entire space. Central speakers would a game-changer in particular for dance activities.
Sport Equipment : 150€ / 170US$ / 230CAD$ / 130£.
- The sport equipment we have at the moment is obsolete, mostly constituting in deflated balls. New sport equipment would benefit the women’s health, but also their children’s.
Portable Electric Heaters : 75€ x 2 / 85US$ x 2 / 114CAD$ x 2 / 130 £ x 2
- The winter gets very cold in Nea Kavala and a portable electric heater could permit the women to enjoy some warmth and come to class without coats.
Henna, Art Material, Sewing Material, Hair Dye, Beads : This is the kind of ressources we need all year long for the different activities. Quality and diverse material is essential to offer profitable empowering experiences. Moreover, with the expected camp residents influx, these are exponentially necessary to make sure every women in Nea Kavala gets a chance to be part of the community.
Please use this special day as a moment to learn more about the Nea Kavala women’s situation and how you can support them through the Women’s Space initiative of We Are Here.
Try to open your mind and imagine…
… Imagine being the mother of four young children, living in a metal container surrounded by about 200 other metal containers and metal containers only.
Imagine having to walk about an hour by foot over a busy highway with heavy trucks shooting by, if you want to leave this isolated island of metal to buy fresh fruits, nappies or medicine.
Imagine not being granted a doctor’s visit when you need to, due to your denied access to health care or simply because your knowledge of this language that you have just started to learn is being ranked as insufficient by the doctor who immediately sends you out of the hospital when you enter.
Imagine facing smaller, bigger and tremendous challenges concerning the justification of your sole existence in the place you have, due to the concatenation of extreme external factors of dreadful nature, ended up in.
Imagine having this and much, m u c h more on your mind every day – and still showing up for English class every morning at 11 o’clock on the spot, beaming from motivation, a big, contagious smile adorning your face.
Imagine being over 70 years old, never having learned how to read and write in your own native language, never even having put a footstep in a classroom – just to suddenly decide that here and now, backed by a walking stick, is your time to take your education in your own hands by starting to learn the English language.
Imagine having this sort of undefeatable willpower to do what you can to actively shape your own future in the areas you can. Imagine that your pursuit of ever living a self-determined, equal life makes you overcome any of the countless obstacles that you find on the windy path towards it.
It is the sort of breath-taking attitude that we volunteers at We Are Here witness in the strong and inspiring women coming to our Women’s Space on the Nea Kavala refugee camp every single day.
The Women’s Space is a self-built, green-blue-painted wooden cabin, situated next to the lawyer and psychologist containers on the camp. Its insides are decorated with art works, painted mugs and hand-made pillows – all created by the women who take up on its offers. It aims to offer a safe spot for all women in Nea Kavala. It’s a place that welcomes the ladies to enjoy, unwind and leave their worries at the door for a few hours.
Here they don’t have to be “mothers”, “wifes”, “refugees” or any other label limiting their identity.
Here they can be women. Women, who empower themselves and lift each other up.
This empowerment comes in many facets: May it be through learning how to read and write in our women-only English ABC course or further improving their language skills in one of the higher level classes, in which we currently welcome more than 65 women from various ages and ethnicities.
The recently established “Open Language Café” is another example of a project to enforce independence and community-led learning. During this activity the Women’s Space turns into an open space that offers a studious environment for women to perform any education-related activity in a co-sharing or self-study way. You will find ladies standing confidentially at the whiteboards, writing down letters and teaching those, eager to learn how to write Persian, Arabic and Urdu. Others are gathered around the two big tables explaining challenging subjects to each other, tackling self-study workbooks collaborately, practising their conversation skills or playing language-games in order to improve in English, German, French and Greek.
In the afternoons then, this education hub turns into a social space. Women come to play music, drum and dance, learn the guitar, draw, craft and paint. With the help of some sewing machines they fix, adjust and upgrade their clothes or turn old fabric into beautiful curtains, tablecloths, bags and pillowcases. They paint gorgeous henna patterns on each other’s hands, crochet and knit adorable baby hats, socks and washcloths and show each other how to knot pretty little bracelets.
Sometimes we just come together to enjoy a common space and chat. Yet, every woman has her individual skills and talents and we thrive from sharing them with each other over a cup of tea and some biscuits.
What you can witness to arise from this is a solid, comforting and uplifting community of women that, despite all differences, support, empower and bolster each other.
“We cannot all succeed when half of us are held back.”
Please think about Malala Yousafzai’s words and take action for equality. An equal world is an enabled world. Be part of the sea of hands that lift each other up and support the women at Nea Kavala through the Women’s Space initiative of We Are Here.
Apply for volunteering with our cause or contribute financially so that we can purchase material required for our offers.
Thank you!
For more information visit our website and Facebook page.
A day to celebrate, but also to acknowledge the current situation, consider carefully and take action.
An essential part of We Are Here 's work on the Nea Kavala refugee camp in Northern Greece is the Women’s Space: A safe space for all women in which they can feel appreciated, freely express their emotions and feel autonomous and independent through their participation in English classes and social activities.
It’s a space to empower, educate and connect.
In the upcoming month, we are expecting a drastic influx of camp residents due to transfers from the Greek islands. This urges our organisation to prepare for much higher attendance in each of our offered activities, which we cannot achieve without receiving financial support from caring donators to purchase required material to respond to our most crucial needs.
These are as follows :
A projector : approx. 100€ / 85£ / 112US$ / 150CAD$
- This would not only be useful in the classrooms, it would permit to organize movie projections.
Speakers : approx. 150€ x 2 / 85US$ x 2 / 115CAD$ x 2 / 65£ x 2
- We only have small portable speakers at the moment that don’t cover the entire space. Central speakers would a game-changer in particular for dance activities.
Sport Equipment : 150€ / 170US$ / 230CAD$ / 130£.
- The sport equipment we have at the moment is obsolete, mostly constituting in deflated balls. New sport equipment would benefit the women’s health, but also their children’s.
Portable Electric Heaters : 75€ x 2 / 85US$ x 2 / 114CAD$ x 2 / 130 £ x 2
- The winter gets very cold in Nea Kavala and a portable electric heater could permit the women to enjoy some warmth and come to class without coats.
Henna, Art Material, Sewing Material, Hair Dye, Beads : This is the kind of ressources we need all year long for the different activities. Quality and diverse material is essential to offer profitable empowering experiences. Moreover, with the expected camp residents influx, these are exponentially necessary to make sure every women in Nea Kavala gets a chance to be part of the community.
Please use this special day as a moment to learn more about the Nea Kavala women’s situation and how you can support them through the Women’s Space initiative of We Are Here.
Try to open your mind and imagine…
… Imagine being the mother of four young children, living in a metal container surrounded by about 200 other metal containers and metal containers only.
Imagine having to walk about an hour by foot over a busy highway with heavy trucks shooting by, if you want to leave this isolated island of metal to buy fresh fruits, nappies or medicine.
Imagine not being granted a doctor’s visit when you need to, due to your denied access to health care or simply because your knowledge of this language that you have just started to learn is being ranked as insufficient by the doctor who immediately sends you out of the hospital when you enter.
Imagine facing smaller, bigger and tremendous challenges concerning the justification of your sole existence in the place you have, due to the concatenation of extreme external factors of dreadful nature, ended up in.
Imagine having this and much, m u c h more on your mind every day – and still showing up for English class every morning at 11 o’clock on the spot, beaming from motivation, a big, contagious smile adorning your face.
Imagine being over 70 years old, never having learned how to read and write in your own native language, never even having put a footstep in a classroom – just to suddenly decide that here and now, backed by a walking stick, is your time to take your education in your own hands by starting to learn the English language.
Imagine having this sort of undefeatable willpower to do what you can to actively shape your own future in the areas you can. Imagine that your pursuit of ever living a self-determined, equal life makes you overcome any of the countless obstacles that you find on the windy path towards it.
It is the sort of breath-taking attitude that we volunteers at We Are Here witness in the strong and inspiring women coming to our Women’s Space on the Nea Kavala refugee camp every single day.
The Women’s Space is a self-built, green-blue-painted wooden cabin, situated next to the lawyer and psychologist containers on the camp. Its insides are decorated with art works, painted mugs and hand-made pillows – all created by the women who take up on its offers. It aims to offer a safe spot for all women in Nea Kavala. It’s a place that welcomes the ladies to enjoy, unwind and leave their worries at the door for a few hours.
Here they don’t have to be “mothers”, “wifes”, “refugees” or any other label limiting their identity.
Here they can be women. Women, who empower themselves and lift each other up.
This empowerment comes in many facets: May it be through learning how to read and write in our women-only English ABC course or further improving their language skills in one of the higher level classes, in which we currently welcome more than 65 women from various ages and ethnicities.
The recently established “Open Language Café” is another example of a project to enforce independence and community-led learning. During this activity the Women’s Space turns into an open space that offers a studious environment for women to perform any education-related activity in a co-sharing or self-study way. You will find ladies standing confidentially at the whiteboards, writing down letters and teaching those, eager to learn how to write Persian, Arabic and Urdu. Others are gathered around the two big tables explaining challenging subjects to each other, tackling self-study workbooks collaborately, practising their conversation skills or playing language-games in order to improve in English, German, French and Greek.
In the afternoons then, this education hub turns into a social space. Women come to play music, drum and dance, learn the guitar, draw, craft and paint. With the help of some sewing machines they fix, adjust and upgrade their clothes or turn old fabric into beautiful curtains, tablecloths, bags and pillowcases. They paint gorgeous henna patterns on each other’s hands, crochet and knit adorable baby hats, socks and washcloths and show each other how to knot pretty little bracelets.
Sometimes we just come together to enjoy a common space and chat. Yet, every woman has her individual skills and talents and we thrive from sharing them with each other over a cup of tea and some biscuits.
What you can witness to arise from this is a solid, comforting and uplifting community of women that, despite all differences, support, empower and bolster each other.
“We cannot all succeed when half of us are held back.”
Please think about Malala Yousafzai’s words and take action for equality. An equal world is an enabled world. Be part of the sea of hands that lift each other up and support the women at Nea Kavala through the Women’s Space initiative of We Are Here.
Apply for volunteering with our cause or contribute financially so that we can purchase material required for our offers.
Thank you!
For more information visit our website and Facebook page.
Organizer
Leonie Wöllner
Organizer
Bad Säckingen, Baden-Württemberg