As co-founder, I spend about 70% of my time in the UK running operations and spend the rest in Greece to take over the leadership on the camp, stay on top of what is happening and drive new developments. It’s very busy and often stressful but I love these trips to see how we’re moving things forward and to meet the latest volunteers.
On every trip I discover yet another team of amazing individuals who have paid for their own travel and accommodation to do fantastic work. It’s only because of these extraordinary people (and of course our donors) that we can get so much done. To give you an idea, here is what we did on my last 10 day trip:
Shop:
– Instituted a much fairer and more dignified distribution system in the shop with a new points system
– Bought about 3,000 euros of stock, mostly food
– Collected a large shipment of kiwi fruit from a local farmer
Boutique:
– Distributed a pair of shoes – many new – to all men and women (about 250)
– Distributed a fresh set of clothing to all the kids (about 200)
– Distributed a new pair of jogging trousers to all men (about 130)
– Set up the women’s boutique to distribute a fresh set of clothing and a new abaya for every woman (about 120)
Playground:
– Installed a new item of equipment in the kids’ playground
– Spent many hours pushing the kids on swings
Cafeteria:
– Found 3 new managers for the refugee-run Cafeteria and supplied them with resources they need
– Ran women-only sessions
– Fixed the internet that had been down for 5 days
Warehouse:
– Received a large shipment of clothes from the medical NGO for us to distribute
– Sorted many hundreds of items of clothing
Kitchen:
– Picked up 4 new pots for the community kitchen costing 1,800 euros
– Installed new water supply for kitchen and arranged for the fire safety check
Classrooms:
– Agreed with Ministry of Education what to do about the kindergarden classrooms so they can get started.
Relationships:
– Arranged and ran a long consultation meeting with 50+ residents
– Supported the IRC with 2 of their large camp-wide events and their women-only computer skills training
– Had 3 donor visits (including one from Sadie Frost!)
– Interviewed by local press
– Posted updates to 22 facebook, 16 updates to Instagram and 3 new posts on the website
– Sent about 200 emails
Volunteers:
– Said goodbye to 3 volunteers and said hello to 7 new ones
– Recruited 8 new volunteers for the future, all personally interviewed
– Appointed a new volunteer co-ordinator for Alexandreia
