Our shop at Katiskas stocks a range of food but it’s the basics that are the big sellers – and the people there love our eggs!
Here are our top 10 sellers:
It’s clear that the healthy options dominate: they choose to spend 24% of their points on fresh fruit and veg and 29% on dairy.
Are we making a difference?
Everyone on the camp is struggling to make ends meet while they wait for the asylum applications to be processed so they focus on buying healthy food for their families. That has obvious nutritional benefits and helps with food security. The only exception is sugar which they have a huge fondness for!
We offer healthy supplementary food – something that everyone needs – and because we buy in bulk, they get more for their points than if we were just to offer cash.
We should not underestimate the impact of having a regular, reliable service, offered by professional, caring volunteers.
Many in the camp have had their futures taken away, they have little control over their destinies, they have been thrust together with hundreds of strangers to live with the indignity of a refugee camp.
At least with the shop they have something they can depend on that treats them like normal human beings.
We love Help Refugees
We rely on cash donations to buy what we need regularly. Help Refugees is our biggest supporter, paying for all fresh fruit, vegetables, eggs, yoghurt and 8 of the top 10 items.
They fund nearly 80% of all the products in our shop so a huge thank you to their generous supporters.
How do we distribute food at Katsikas?
We have been distributing food through shops on camps in Greece for about 18 months now. At Katsikas, here is how we do it:
– We divide the camp into 5 even groups of families and distribute a week’s worth of coupons to each group Monday to Friday (if we distribute all the points on the same day, the next day in the shop is too busy. Although we have never failed to open the shop and never failed to make sure it is fully stocked, there is still insecurity)
– The points are distributed as tokens in denominations of 20, 10 and 5 points (so it is close to money as possible and people can choose how much they spend)
– Adults get 100, kids get 50 and pregnant women get 150 points (we need clarity and simplicity to be fair)
– Every item in the shop is priced at 20 points = 1 euro (to replicate real world shopping and manage our budget)
– The shop has fixed opening hours when people can come and choose what they want from what is on offer (choice is fundamental to dignity)
– We track what is bought on a basic Point of Sale app on a tablet computer (Loyverse which is free to use so that we can understand what people want and streamline our stock buying)
