Resources for Vial Refugee Camp

RESOURCES FOR VIAL REFUGEE CAMP IN CHIOS, GREECE
 

Image Credit: J. Owens, VOA, via https://www.voanews.com/a/life-remains-miserable-for-greece-hot-spot-refugees/3667749.html

Image Credit: Ludek Stavinoha via https://euobserver.com/opinion/138776


Dear Friend,

I write to you as a long-term volunteer supporting refugee relief efforts on the island of Chios, Greece. I am currently the Team Coordinator for the main distribution team to Vial, the Chios People's Warehouse (CPW). The CPW is a volunteer-run organization that focuses on non-food item resource distribution 5-6 times per week to Vial Refugee Camp on Chios. Vial Camp is a military-run camp home to about 2300 refugees and asylum seekers; most people are fleeing violence, war, or persecution from their home countries in the Middle East/North Africa (Yemen, Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Kurdistan, Egypt, Algeria, Morocco), Central Asia (Afghanistan, Pakistan), Southeast Asia (Malaysia, Sri Lanka), as well as East, West and Sub-Saharan Africa (Cameroon, Ghana, Nigeria, Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia).

I will be running this fundraiser for the next few months, and I hope to raise $15,000 to support my work here. The majority of funds will go toward distribution work with the Chios People's Warehouse, though I ask for your trust to use some funds in case I recognize any urgent needs for individual cases pertaining to the refugee situation during my next year living and working on Chios. I also foresee certain side projects arising (namely projects to help pass the boredom of people's days waiting for their asylum cases to be heard).

Vial is a notoriously awful camp for many reasons, including but not limited to: the often inedible food; understaffing for medical services; indecent and degrading treatment of residents by camp staff, including routine police intimidation tactics and brutality; lack of provision of adequate housing, i.e. the majority of new arrivals are sent to sleep outside, or at best, given a summer tent; abdication of responsibility by camp staff for services like waste disposal (including the cleaning of toilets) and clean-up of camp spaces; inadequate programming for youth, especially unaccompanied minors, despite financial and organizational resources supposedly existing; inaccessibility to the city centre with minimal bus transportation and unaffordable alternatives; numerous other documented egregious conditions. If you would like to read more, please check out this Open Letter to the EU Commission , which calls for accountability of the human rights violations occurring at Vial.

I write to you now because WINTER IS COMING!!!!! And we need to be prepared with extra funds on hand for items that will be needed.  Though we receive much in the way of in-kind donations for all of the clothing that we distribute, we need funds to help us run! We currently have no money on hand to be able to restock items, cover any costs that arise, or properly budget and prepare for any winter items we'll need. As the primary distributors, we want to have the flexibility to purchase, for example, extra tents if a family comes to us saying they were not provided with one by the Greek government-run Vial Administration––and this happens frequently, as we received an estimate just last week that ~550 people sleep outside of caravans and are subjected to the elements, including snakes, rats, poisonous insects, and people with malicious intentions.

With your support, we can restock any of the items below, and we can prepare for winter:

TENTS (~$200/five-person tent)
DIAPERS ($5/pack)
POWDERED MILK ($10/container)
TARPS (for protecting individuals living outside and the everyone living in tents––cumulatively at least 500-700 people) ($15/tarp)
UNDERWEAR ($1/pair)
SOCKS ($5/pack)
SHOES ($5/pair)
SOLAR LAMPS
WINTER CLOTHES AND OTHER WINTER ITEMS (extra jackets if needed, winter clothing gear, warmer tents, hand-warmers, extra blankets, etc.)
OVERHEAD COSTS (i.e. gas for trips to Vial, rent of the warehouse, costs for printing, etc. – no more than 10% will be used)
OTHER NEEDS THAT ARISE

Coordination of shipping to the small island of Chios can be expensive and so we prefer to receive monetary donations for bulk purchases. However, if you have access to large quantities of any of these items or have a connection to a company that would be willing to make a bulk donation, I would be eager to discuss this with you.

I thank you from the bottom of my heart for any amount you are willing to contribute. I assure you that even one pair of shoes makes a huge difference to someone with torn sandals worried about the winter months ahead; imagine what it’s like to travel across many countries by land and/or sea, and then not be given a protected sleeping space––and then to be able to go from sleeping on the ground to, at the very least, sleeping in a tent. 

I have included several pictures of the daily routine of warehouse organization, order packing, and making distributions. If you would like to follow my current work, please follow our Facebook page  or be in touch by email. If you have my personal email or phone number, you may also contact me via those, or through this page.

With great appreciation for your attention and consideration,

Nina


In case you would like to read more: 

NUMBERS ON CHIOS:
Individuals and families arrive to Chios by dinghy, which they take across the passage from (usually) Çesme, Turkey. Though the rate of arrivals fluctuates, recent weeks have seen about anywhere from 2-5 boats each week, meaning anywhere from 40-100 people. As of today (September 24), already for the month of September, 12 boats have arrived carrying 468 people. For 2018 total: 2900 people new arrivals have come to the island of Chios, and 3088 have been transferred out of Chios ; 22,998 have arrived to the Greek islands; 26,954 have been picked up and arrested by the Turkish Coast Guard.  (If you'd like to track the statistics more closely, check out the Aegean Boat Report Facebook Page  where updates are posted weekly. Now we are about to enter one of the historically busiest times of the year, and winter is coming.

WAREHOUSE OPERATIONS:
The Chios People's Warehouse was opened in 2015 and has become the primary regular distributor of resources to residents of Vial Refugee Camp. As the Coordinator, I organize the warehouse, distribution of resources (clothing, shoes, winter gear, blankets, tents, diapers, baby supplies, and more) to residents of Vial Camp, as well as distribution of resources to refugees living in apartments in Chios… I distribute in Vial 5-6 nights per week for 4-5 hours in the evening. Each week (and most days) something new comes up for our team, and we’re always eager to take part in any work that needs to be done.

Week-to-week: We register and deliver anywhere from 100-200 clothing packages to residents of Vial. Moving into winter we will focus on single-item distributions: for example, last week, in addition to our clothing distribution, we distributed blankets, focusing especially on new arrivals who are sleeping outside. We will also make big distributions of jackets, shoes, hats, gloves, scarves for all children, women, and men; because the forecast indicates rain on Thursday, we will bring rain jackets to residents over the next few days. If you have questions about my work here, please be in touch and please follow our Facebook page .

Finally, pictures of our warehouse work as well as Vial Camp.


Above: Our warehouse––on one of its cleaner days! 



Above: Some days I end up climbing like a monkey through the rafters to organize all our boxes of winter clothing :) (Photo credit: Mary Wenker.)


Above: Preparing boxes for an afternoon clothing distribution. 


Above: Preparing to begin a distribution.

Below: Images of the Vial Camp, aka detention centre. All the following image credits to a photographer who prefers to remain anonymous. 



Anonymous credit for the following photos: