Building the garden together created strong bonds.
The refugee camp on Lesvos island is all concrete, which makes the garden even more precious for the people living there.
During their summer camp, Action for Women took displaced girls to the beach.
In Her Vision brought its mobile eye clinic to rural North Carolina.
Last spring, several of our humanitarian partners requested funding for projects to help people endure the summer heat, particularly for the residents of refugee camps in remote and barren parts of Greece.
In this newsletter, we’ll describe three such projects—two community gardens and a summer camp for girls–plus a grant that helps with “Back to School.” All were surprisingly inexpensive, proving that it doesn’t take a lot of money to do a lot of good.
In Corinth, about 50 miles west of Athens, our partner Lighthouse Relief (LHR) teamed up with another NGO to build a community garden. LHR only asked for $350, so we imagined a modest endeavor. Far from it! The project provided not just green space, but also psychosocial support. As LHR’s Pauline Klose explained it, “Building something together can create strong bonds and a feeling of purpose and achievement, which is incredibly valuable for people who are stuck in limbo.”
This month, Pauline sent an update about a carpentry workshop they organized in the garden, saying, “Together with the community, we have so far built a ping pong table, a structure to create large areas of shade, and a Pétanque/boules game court. All these projects are entirely built from recycled materials such as old pallets.” We love an enterprise that does good in so many ways.
On Lesvos Island, a Humanity Now grant supported a garden at Europe Cares’ Parea Center near a refugee camp. The team grew flowers, herbs, and vegetables to share with anyone who visited. The garden also became a site for relaxation and nature lessons for children in their childcare program.
In Athens, Action for Women proposed launching a summer camp for displaced girls, and Humanity Now supplied the $2000 they needed to run it. The girls spent two weeks swimming, making arts and crafts, learning martial arts, and, most importantly, building community. “I learned to be a kind person,” one of the campers, Samuella, reported in her evaluation. “I actually made friends,” wrote Marie. The project came in $300 under budget, so Action for Women bought a refrigerator for their women’s shelter.
Finally, with the arrival of fall, we want to mention a “Back to School” project in rural North Carolina. The nonprofit In Her Vision used Humanity Now funds to run a free mobile eye clinic for immigrant farmworkers. Many of these families have no insurance, so receiving a pair of eyeglasses can be life-changing, especially for children starting a new year in school. The one-day clinic cost Humanity Now $4919 and provided exams and new eyeglasses for 50 people.
Thank you for helping us with all these projects. Your donations are precious to us!
We Recommend:
Beforeigners is a Norwegian police procedural TV series that wrestles with immigration-related issues. The wacky twist is that these immigrants aren’t from other countries, but from earlier times, including the Stone Age, the Viking Era, and the late 19th Century. For the first time, one of these newcomers joins the police force.
Alfhildr, from the Viking Era, works to solve the mysterious murder of a Stone Ager. Does this sound confusing? It’s actually a gripping drama that forces us to think about what it means to be an outsider.
