In April 2025, Emily Reay spent two and a half weeks volunteering at our Dignity Centre in Nicosia. In an article published on her Substack, she describes it as, “one of the best experiences I have ever had,” and one that “changed my outlook on the world quite profoundly.”
Cyprus continues to see high numbers of people arriving in search of safety. While official procedures require people to register with the authorities and spend time in a reception centre, often described as a camp, meaningful support quickly drops away. Once people are discharged into housing, they are left to navigate an unfamiliar system, often without the right to work for months. This is the gap our Dignity Centre works to fill.
Emily describes the Centre as a place that “offers eight weeks of free food and ongoing support to help [people] get their lives set up.” During her time, she supported new arrivals with a wide range of tasks, from shopping in the Dignity Market, to registering for labour cards and bank accounts, to helping families apply for medical cards and access baby formula or clothing.
“The market is incredible… It really makes a difference,” writes Emily. Every adult member receives a weekly points allowance to spend on essentials. Everything is free, but members choose what they need, and volunteers are on hand to help.
At reception, the focus is on community, conversation and practical help. Emily notes that the Centre is “often the only place outside of their homes where [people seeking asylum] were made to feel human in Cyprus.”
She reflects movingly about the people she met: two sisters from Iran who “reminded me so much of me and my little sister”; a young man from Sudan who helped start a street party with Sudanese music and dancing on a Friday afternoon, only to quietly share days later that he was sleeping badly, working dangerous and low-paid construction jobs, and often going hungry.
“I admired his joy while facing so much uncertainty,” she wrote. “But… he didn’t know what to tell his mum. He couldn’t legally work yet… and he just couldn’t make ends meet.”
Emily also shares the deep mix of emotions the work stirred in her. “Often I would find myself reflecting on my conversations in the evening and feel profoundly upset or angry (sometimes I wasn’t sure what I was feeling) at the world for the treatment displaced people face day-to-day.”
She writes with warmth about fellow volunteers — “a mixed bunch from all over the place” — and about what it meant to find common ground with people from entirely different walks of life. “There is always common ground to be found with strangers,” she wrote. “I learned how to acknowledge and accept my privilege without feeling guilty or making it a problem for other people to appease.”
“I really did feel like I made a difference for a small amount of time to a small number of people,” she concludes. I wish I could tell the members what an impact they have had on my life — but that is not the point of volunteering.”
Read Emily’s full article on Substack and apply to volunteer with us in Cyprus.
