Featured – Me, Myself and Di

Right to an Education

I strongly believe that every child deserves the right to an education. Having been lucky enough to be University educated in the United Kingdom, it is something I value highly.

One thing I have learnt since being in Uganda, is that things don’t often work out as expected. After all, this is Africa. Yesterday, my plans to start health screening on the oldest nursery school children, were knocked on the head. We needed to print more screening sheets but as the power was down, we were unable to.

On my way back to the lodge to sort the papers, I passed a small boy. Bare foot and dressed in rags, talking to the staff outside the gate, they were trying to round up enough money for a bus fare. It turns out the boy had been found earlier in the morning, sleeping in a ditch outside the lodge. He had spent the night there. Visibly in pain, he limped towards us.

His name was Paulo and he was 11 years old. With nurse Rosen’s help, we established that his father had taken him to his sisters, where he was to work for an old lady as her cow boy. He walked there and back each day and after working two months, reasonably asked for some money. At this request, the old lady ‘chased him away’. He went back to his sisters, who instead of helping him, made him start walking back home.

It had taken him 4 days to reach here and he lives near Mburo, another 3 hours drive away. There was no way, with any conscience, that I could have just let him get on a bus when he could barely stand. Instead, I picked him up and piggy backed him to the lodge where he could shower and change.

This was very emotional.

This photo captures the moment perfectly. Sitting outside the staff showers, waiting. It is heart-breaking, in this moment, to see a broken child.

He stripped off his rags, torn and dirty and dropped them on the floor. Standing malnourished, naked and vulnerable, he just looked at me. He was placing all of his faith in a complete stranger. More than that, in a white stranger, whom he could only communicate with on a basic level.

I fetched a bar of soap from my room and my towel and ran the shower for him. I have no idea if he has running water at home, although it is still rare in our region, so I doubt it. Despite his fears and exhaustion, it was obvious the pleasure he took as soon as he stepped under the water.

Naked, swollen-bellied and eyes closed, a small smile danced across his lips. Despite his ordeals, he stayed in the shower and scrubbed every area of his body with the feverishness of someone who has not washed in days and the conscientiousness of someone much older than his years, who knew to take full advantage of this opportunity.

Dripping, he stepped out of the shower and I wrapped him in a towel. I’d set Rosen the task of trying to find some spare clothes from the donations that may fit him but after holding a recent market to make money for the school, we had no children’s or men’s clothes left. We managed to find an old shirt and school jumper but no bottoms would fit his tiny frame. Eventually, Tony found a smallish pair of shorts with a draw string waist, some of his own, that did the job perfectly.

Stepping out of the store room Paolo looked like a completely different child and I showed him a photo of how he looked in his new clothes. Lifting him up onto my back I grabbed a banana from the kitchen and a large bottle of water from the bar.

We got back to the others and little Paulo was unrecognisable. Sitting down under the shade of the registration tent, I took a look at his feet and his left ankle was acutely sprained. Very tender and swollen he was now struggling to even stand, so I grabbed our only bandage from the clinic and strapped it as best I could.

We grabbed him a soda and some bread and set up a mattress for him to lie on in the shade. He tried to stay awake to listen to our conversation but eventually drifted off into the most peaceful looking sleep.

When he woke, he finished his food and drink and, well rested, I carried him back to the road to wait for the bus. Along with bus money, we packed a bag with his rags, some biscuits, a few pencils and a letter folded in his top pocket explaining how we found him and that a bright young boy like him should be in school and not working. We explained that as a school, we are able to provide bursaries and hope that the family will contact us to let Paulo continue his education.

He is the sweetest boy. I’m so glad we were able to take him in and show him kindness, even if just for the day. However, it is heart-breaking to know that once he gets home, we have no way of knowing how he will be received or if his family will agree to let him continue school instead of working.

There are so many injustices in the world and it is so sad when it happens to young children. I pray that the letter we sent with him will be enough to change his future. If he were able to return, I would pay his school fees myself without hesitation to keep him here, safe and away from child labour. It is so sad to be in this situation as, despite all that appears best for him, the only option, the right option, is to send him on his way and return to his parents. I guess all I can do is hope that they get in contact with our director when he returns.

If you want to contribute to my overseas work, then please follow this link below to my crowdfunding page.

https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/diana-whiteside

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Uganda Lodge

Believe it or not it has taken over 2 hours to write the title. I am fully submerged into Ugandan life and finding any spare time to blog is as hard as ever. I’m finally getting out my laptop and I have an excitable 11-year-old next to me who won’t let my concentration drift even for a minute. We have discussed the reason for a belly button; worked out basic mental arithmetic and pretended to talk without teeth. Needless to say, it makes writing a little tricky; when school term starts in a fortnight it may become a little easier, but I’m not too convinced.

Life in Africa is exactly as expected, everything runs at a slower pace, on African time. The nearest town to where I am staying is Ntungamo, in Western Uganda, near the Rwandan border. The people of Uganda are friendly and inviting and as area I’m working in is fairly remote, it is still rare to come across white people which makes everyone is excited to see you! They point, stare and wave shouting ‘Muzungu’: white person.

Whilst staying in Africa I’m residing at a guesthouse adjacent to a school and when not working at the local hospital or health centre, free time is spent renovating the school before term starts and rounding up and playing with the local children whenever possible.

In addition to a school, the guesthouse I am attached to has a medical centre over the road and a development building which has brick making, sewing machines, shoe making and a barber to teach local trades. Much of this is still under development and they are hoping to set up more vocational style work for children to go into, that are unable to study at secondary school due to academic or financial reasons.

The whole development was started by a single, remarkable man named Denis. As a child he did not attend school, along with many other children in the area and the at the age of 13, became a child soldier. Now he is older, he still works for the Ugandan army but has started up this entire project with the aim to ensure that every child in his neighbourhood can get an education and access to health care.

The money Denis makes through various projects and volunteer opportunities is all reinvested into the community with any money being contributed to the school’s development and bursaries for the local children that cannot afford it. All the government schools in Uganda charge for attendance about 35 000/ term, this is approx. £7GBP. As this is a private school the fees are a little higher, also offering the addition to board for children from further away, however as this is heavily subsidised by charitable donations it generally works out at a similar price to the government run schools. Any families that cannot afford to pay cash are often allowed to pay in goods, for example beans or bananas and as long as it can be utilised by the school they are happy to accept it.

As mentioned, fees can be heavily subsidised, children at the school can be sponsored to attend and bursaries given to poorer households. Yet despite this, some children still cannot afford to attend. The area I am in is predominantly farming land and this also contributes to the main conditions seen at the health centre.

Due to the poverty there are limited water supplies and water is collected by children and families from water sources often polluted with animal waste, this gives rise to high incidences of typhoid and H-pylori. On my first morning at the clinic, every child that attended had one of these conditions and it is generally related to poor water access and not boiling water before drinking.

A local house made from mud and wood, they last about 50 years

Other conditions common at the clinic include malaria and mosquito born pathologies. To reduce incidences of malaria in Uganda the government have issued free mosquito nets to families however, despite this they are seldom used. Often when visiting homes mosquito nets are found unused, for storage or even on occasion as fishing nets. This leads to large quantities of people catching malaria, however, as it can be fairly easily treated if caught early, the locals treat it in the same manner as catching a cold in the UK.

If you want to read more about the types of medical conditions I’ve seen then read my posts on [The Local Hospital] and Ugandan Community Visits.

Tales From the Macedonian Border: ‘They will shoot me if I come back’

Tales from the Macedonian border is a series of posts I have written for people to understand the current situation at European borders and to put context to some of the refugees I have worked with and their struggles.

This first story is from a man my age.

He is 27 years old, from Afghanistan. He has tried to cross the border 6 times and 6 times he has been unsuccessful and found himself back in Thessaloniki. I have known this man over two months and after multiple failed attempts, he has decided to stay in Greece.

“They told me they will shoot me if I come back”

Back home, in Afghanistan, this man was a soldier in the Afghan army. He made is way to Greece, as many do, using smugglers. They made the long journey from Turkey to Greece by foot, which although difficult (he describes long days walking and times with no food or water), he says it is generally successful. Crossing by boat is much riskier; he is right. Between January and July 2018, 1 in 18 people died attempting the journey by sea. Due to the high cost incurred travelling from Afghanistan to Greece, he has decided to make each of his journeys to the Macedonian border independent of smugglers.

He describes clearly the route taken, very similar to the ones used in Kingsley’s The New Odyssey, in 2015. From Thessaloniki there is a bus that allows people to travel for 45 minutes costing only 1 Euro. When they leave the bus, it is then a 7 hour walk to Polykastro. For those that walk slower, the journey can take 10 hours.

Polykastro is a city in Northern Greece. In 2015 it was frequented by refugees crossings to Europe and due to its proximity to the border of Macedonia, remains a common destination for refugees today.

On arriving in Polykastro there is a trainline which people follow and for him, from Polykastro, it only takes three hours to reach the border. Two hours to the Hara Hotel, an infamous stop off for people trying to cross to Macedonia and then 1 hour onwards, to the border itself. Most border crossings are completed under the cover of nightfall to reduce chances of detection.

We discuss methods of crossing the border. Usually people try to climb under lorries to pass undetected and up to 2 or 3 people can fit underneath, however it is very dangerous. Others break into lorries and try to hide under the tarpaulin. The wealthier use smugglers to make the crossings and once into Serbia another smuggler meets them to take them to a camp until they can arrange passage on into Croatia. For those with more money that cross successfully on their own, they can take a taxi from near the border direct to the Serbian border which he reports is only a 3 hour drive, as oppose to a nine day walk from Greece. Once in Serbia he believes it is only an 8 day walk to reach Italy.

He himself makes the journey with around 7 or 8 friends and they cross the border by cutting the wire fences. On his previous border crossings he has successfully reached Macedonia every time, however either he or his friends have been caught in nearby Macedonian villages and forced to return to Greece. Consistently the border police are reported as being more tolerant than at other borders, they will ‘only beat you if you run’. German police are often reported patrolling the Macedonian borders and he confirms he has encountered this himself. He reports that often at other borders, the police are not so understanding. He has experienced first-hand violence from the Turkish-Greek border police and touches on rumours I have heard before, about the Bulgarian police being particularly brutish and barbaric.

Once back in Greece they have no choice but to make the return journey back to Thessaloniki on foot and try again another time.

He admits that even though he has failed to cross several times there is only once when he himself was caught, the other times it was because his friends were captured by police. When they see the police, they run but he is ‘too fast for them’ and laughingly states that they will not be able to catch him, for he is from the Afghan army.

I question him on his new plans to remain in Greece. He reports that because his life is in danger in Afghanistan and he has the correct papers from the army, he will now try to seek asylum. His initial plans were to try and reach France or mainland Europe but admits it is harder than he expected. Why France? He had heard they accept Afghans.

Now with the difficulties crossing and the high costs incurred using smugglers from Afghanistan to Greece he has run out of money and cannot afford to go further. He wishes to make his interview and then ‘hopefully they will accept’ him.

He elaborates on why he cannot return home to Afghanistan. Before he left, his village was mostly run by the Taliban. As a member of the Afghan army, they threatened him to join them or else they would kill him. He explained to me a promise he made to the Afghan army, with his ‘hand on the holy book’, that he would never do anything ‘against his country’. He knew he could never work for the Taliban, a fundamentalist Islamic group. As he resisted they threatened his family, stating they would kill his father and eventually he had no choice but to leave. He reports speaking with the commander of his army and they released him from service to leave the country.

I enquired if his family were safe now he was here in Greece, he says so. After he arrived in Turkey, he phoned saying that he had left both the army and Afghanistan, ‘please don’t hurt my family’. They said if he ever returns to Afghan soil, they will shoot him.

This is a man who loves his country and is a proud Afghan. Like many of the people I have met in Thessaloniki, he has his own story and his own reasons for attempting the journey to mainland Europe but for now, he will try to seek asylum in Greece, until it is safe to return home.

To support my work with refugees like this man please click here!

Tales from the Macedonian Border

Recently I read ‘The New Odyssey’ by Philip Kingsley, New York Times journalist and at the time of writing, migration correspondent for the Guardian. For anyone who has not read this, it is an in-depth account of the migration routes across Europe in 2015 and follows the story of one particular man, Hashem al-Souki as he and his family leave Damascus, in the hope of a new life in Sweden.

Although I could never do justice to the depth at which Kingsley immerses himself in the Middle East and Europe, I was struck by how different the situation is now, just three years on. As a result, I have decided to capture some of the refugees stories I have met and paint a picture of how the current situation is for migrants traversing Europe.

DSC_8313 (2) — Train tracks to the Macedonian Border

The situation across Europe is ever changing. Borders are harder to cross; refugees are having to wait, in some cases years, for asylum but the one constant, is people are still coming. Although we are not seeing the scale of 2015, over 80 000 have crossed the border into Europe so far in 2018 (UNHCR) and working on the streets in Greece, I cannot see this changing in the imminent future.

Refugees gather for food distribution in Thessaloniki, Greece – August 2018

I have therefore decided to explore, in a series of 5 articles, individual stories from some of the people I meet. I am currently based in Thessaloniki, Northern Greece, working alongside a medical organisation as a physiotherapist and the most common route onward from here is Macedonia.

At the time of Kingsley’s writing in 2015, Macedonia was still relatively easy to cross. The situation he describes was a ‘legal illegal’ border crossing, which refugees (predominantly Syrians) queued at and passed through. During the crossing he undertook, the refugees tried to cross a few miles further down and were caught and redirected by police to cross at the illegal checkpoint.

Reading this, I was surprised at how easy it had been. Working for two months in Northern Greece I was regularly seeing people return to Thessaloniki who had failed to cross the Macedonian border and had been turned away by police, often sustaining beatings. The other stark difference is, in 2015 many refugees travelled independently, following friends instructions on whatsapp or facebook, who had previously had successful crossings. Now, as the borders have become increasingly difficult, the majority of people I meet, are resorting to smugglers to reach Skopje.

DSC_8318 (3).JPG — At the Macedonia Border

Predominantly the stories I tell will be from Afghan and Pakistani men. The men I meet on the street are more frequently from these countries as they do not have priority for the camps and often want to reach other countries before seeking asylum. Within the refugee world it appears to me, that single male migrants face a huge amount of discrimination, both inside and outside of camps. I want to share their journeys and challenges, as they endeavour to reach Western Europe.

Some of the local refugee population in Thessaloniki

Although these series of articles will explore individual stories, primarily my work is medical. One of the boys featured in this series recently returned after another failed border crossing with severe knee pain and swelling having been caught by police. When captured, they are taken back over the border and made to walk back in the direction they came; the majority return to Thessaloniki. Those that return to Thessaloniki, return to see us the next day, so we can attend to their medical needs. After walking a 250 km round trip in just two days, as well as sleeping rough and the anxieties that come with using smugglers, our services (and friendships) are in high demand. I am writing to inform people not only of the current situation in Northern Greece but also to share individual stories from some of the incredible people that make my working day so special. However, neither this, nor my work would be possible without donations, so if any of the stories make you feel empathy for the boys and their struggles and make you realise how essential the medical work we do here is, please donate below.

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Abbas’ Story

I met Abbas and his mother Lela on my first day in the camp. This is his story.

Abbas suffered a spinal cord injury after rebels opened fire on his car in 2016.

Abbas lived and worked near Ramadi, Iraq, with his mother, Lela. Since the beginning of the Iraq war in 2003 Ramadi has been a centre of insurgency for many groups. In May 2015 Ramadi was lost to ISIS and, according to the UN, it has seen the worst destruction of anywhere in Iraq. A city reduced to rubble.

When Abbas’ car was hit, it spun and crashed, killing all the other passengers and damaged his spinal cord at T11, paralysing him from the waist down. After initial surgery in Iraq, Abbas had a metal rod implanted to fixate his spine. After 6 months this began to rub and became very infected, leaving him with a hole in his back and as a result, the rod was then removed. Abbas and his mother decided they needed to leave Iraq for their safety and for the medical care they could no longer receive, given the security situation at home.

In 2017 they began their journey to Europe, flying from Iraq to Turkey and making the rest of their journey by foot. It took 10 hours to walk to the coast, stopping and starting often, with friends and strangers helping push his wheelchair. In the forests of Turkey, Abbas had his wheelchair taken by the smugglers and sat for a day on the forest floor, before making the dangerous journey by boat across to the Greek Islands.

The boat journey lasted for seven hours and during this time Abbas was sat in one position, on a wooden board and unable to re-position himself due to his spinal-cord injury. They arrived on the Greek Island of Samos on 16th September 2017 and were arrested on arrival. There they were taken into custody and Abbas was left on the floor of a police cell for two days. From here they were transferred to a refugee camp. On arrival in the camp, after 4 days of sitting and being unable to change position, Abbas developed a grade 4 pressure sore on his right buttocks. This is an extremely deep and painful sore which he is still struggling with today, a year later.

Abbas remained in Samos a month. He was provided with a new wheelchair and, although he received some medical help, he says the conditions were poor and impossible to manage for someone needing disabled access. He reported it was so hilly that he could not get around and as a result was unable to access a bathroom for 15 days. As Abbas was identified as a more vulnerable patient, he was transferred to the mainland, to the camp at Diavata, on 20th October 2017. This is where he remains today.

On arrival in Diavata he was hopeful he would receive some physiotherapy and further medical care. However, he did not receive any therapy from the Greek health care system; the only rehabilitation input he received was from another volunteer Physiotherapist, Hannah, for a few weeks in July and after my arrival in September. Despite the severity of his injury, the Greek surgeons do not want to operate on his pressure sore. Instead, his mother Lela dresses it every two days and although she worries that she is not a nurse or medically trained, it says so much about their relationship, that it is as clean and in as good a condition as it is.

One of our volunteer doctors reviewed his pressure sore recently for me. The wound itself has a 5cm sinus and they believe he needs debridement under anaesthetic and will likely need a long period for recovery. Abbas is hopeful that soon he will have papers that allow him to seek asylum elsewhere in Europe, as he does not feel Greece is meeting his needs. As soon as he is able to travel onwards, I will ensure a letter of recommendation travels with him, in the hope that the next country can attend to his care more appropriately.

When I began my work with him, Abbas had not left the camp since he arrived a year ago and seldom ventured outside of his container. We have been having rehab three times a week to increase his muscle strength and wheelchair independence for when he is able to leave. He is now able to get to and from the doctor’s office to collect his wound dressings independently and we are beginning to tackle curbs and steps. The terrain is still difficult as it is very rocky but he is exceptionally motivated and amazingly strong, which makes my job easy.

Abbas’s main limitation to rehab and becoming more independent is his pressure sore. Due to the severity and location he is not able to sit out for long periods and tends to sit out only for an hour or two per day. This means that even though he is now strong enough to get about the camp, he is unable to attend any of the language classes put on as he cannot physically sit in his wheelchair for the required amount of time. On his wheelchair he has a thin, foam cushion that he and his mother cut to size themselves and this offers nothing in the way of pressure relief for his sacrum.

He spends the rest of the day repositioning himself in bed but his mattress is equally poor. It is the same thin foam, positioned on top of some cardboard, perhaps explaining why his wound is refusing to heal.

Although ultimately Abbas will require surgery, having a suitable pressure-relieving cushion to sit out on would completely change his day to day function. He will be able to sit out more, get out more and maybe even attend language classes, in the hope that one day he will be able to make a home here in Europe.

Abbas and Lela have particularly touched me whilst I have been in Greece. They have the most beautiful relationship, which is difficult to put into words, although this image captures a tiny glimpse of it.

I want to be able to help them as much as possible whilst I am here and once they move on. An appropriate wheelchair cushion will cost between £100-300. Although getting a mattress, too, would be preferable, it would be better to purchase that once they are settled in their new country, which hopefully won’t be too long now.

If this story affects anyone in the way that it does me, then please donate to my just giving page and we can purchase a cushion for his wheelchair. For anyone wishing to help further, if you donate to my just giving page and comment ‘Abbas’, along with any other comments, I will ensure that 100% of the donations are passed onto him and Lela. This is in the hope that when they finally get a new home, two years after fleeing Iraq, they will be able to purchase anything they need for Abbas’s ongoing care.

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Abbas and I

WhatsApp Image 2018-10-27 at 12.07.57(1)

The Crisis Isn’t Over!

When I said I was going to Europe to volunteer with refugees, many people asked the same questions. “Is that still happening?”, “What is going on now?”

In truth, I didn’t know the extent of the current situation. Yes, it is still happening but how many refugees and what the circumstances are, is difficult to describe until you see it for yourself.

The media has gone quiet.

A young boy washed upon the shores of Greece in 2015 was enough to finally awaken the press to the refugee crisis but since then little has been reported. The hype is over. But after 6 weeks working in Greece it is safe to say that despite the lack of publicity, the crisis is far from over.

The conditions I have seen whilst working in Greece, are in some cases, shocking. I have seen a child with a severe disability, living in an empty container in a refugee camp, alongside 4 other families. 28 people, adults and children living together in under 250 square foot.

These disused cabins have no furniture and no belongings other than simple blankets to keep out the winter cold. On meeting the child and his family, I also discovered that two of his siblings had infected scabies which needed urgent treatment and which, as they are unregistered, the camp and camp doctors would not provide.

As a medical organisation that is currently funded entirely on donations, we are having to provide high cost medications, to offer basic care to children in need. Children, who are living within EU funded refugee camps in Greece.

Although the conditions inside the camp are bad, and likely to get worse with the expected influx of people from Moria on Lesvos, the conditions outside are worse.

As mentioned in a previous blog post, the abandoned building currently houses over 100 refugees. I am not saying I promote the use of the abandoned building; I know the locals are resolute in their fight to get rid of the refugees, all I’m saying is this is fact.

There are over 100 homeless refugees that seek refuge here and for however long or short a period they remain in Thessaloniki, they use this as their base. On some occasions, the refugees who initially look for the comfort of the camp, realise after arrival that they are not going to get shelter/ accommodation, access to showers or even food, they often leave again and opt to sleep in the building, as at least it is near the city centre and they are more likely to find food. A few centres in the city offer food during the day and another organisation distributes food in the evenings to the homeless refugees.

On arrival to clinic last Thursday, our car park was deserted.

Admittedly, there has been a large turn around in the last few days and many familiar faces have moved on to try and cross the border. Despite this however, there are generally a few people already awaiting medical care when we arrive. To investigate, we walked around the area behind the abandoned building and saw some local tradesman fencing it off, so it was inaccessible. When a colleague and I asked one of the workers where he expected the people inside to go after it was sealed, he said he did not know. He replied that we should ‘take them to Germany’ with us.

When we walked around the building the police were present. They had lined up all the refugees and began evicting all of them from the building, without any evidence of papers. Any who didn’t already have police papers were arrested on the spot and the remaining few were advised that if they were there later on, when the police returned, they would be arrested with or without documents.

When we left the clinic that evening, two further refugees had been arrested walking in the area, as they did not have police papers. As we drove away, the streets either side of the abandoned building were lined with boys and men, unable to go inside and waiting with their possessions for who knows what.

They are not allowed back in, as they will be arrested. They will not be allowed to sleep on the ‘streets’ or in ‘parks’, as suggested by the police at the time, as they will likely be arrested. Just a fortnight ago, refugees gathered in Aristotelous square, Thessaloniki’s main square. They camped outside the police station in order to be arrested, just to try and obtain the papers they need to seek asylum. With winter approaching, they are anxious to submit their requests for asylum in order to get a place within a camp for winter. However, the majority of people that camped out in Aristotelous square were families and therefore more likely to attract publicity and subsequently actions.

The refugees from the building are often single men. If they get arrested they run the risk of being detained from a few days to months and are much less likely to get a space within a refugee camp unless they are a minor. These men have no options.

In the six weeks that I have been in Greece, I have seen that the crisis is not over. It is as bad as ever.

I have seen within refugee camps disabled children without any therapy input or basic equipment, such as seating or a wheelchair. I have seen a severe pressure sore with a 5cm deep sinus in need of surgery, managed and dressed by the refugee’s mother without any regular support from the medical team in the camp. There is a man sleeping outside in a tent with brachial monoplegia from a bullet wound through the shoulder, unable to use his arm and yet having to manage without help in such conditions. Next to him is a man unable to walk who suffered a leg injury and burns from a bomb blast; unable to walk yet living in a two person tent. We have discovered severely ill children, one with a temperature of over 40 degrees, again sleeping in tents pitched on hard floors.

I have spoken to those that are medically well but not registered in the camp, who are without access to showers and food. I have tried to help heavily pregnant women that can not be housed. I have seen numerous children with infected scabies that as they are not registered cannot receive treatment. I have seen streets full of men, with nowhere to go and who sleep at risk of being arrested and having all their possessions taken (in some instances not returned).

I have seen all of this and the Greek government want to reduce the number of migrants in Moria camp, Lesvos from 8 500 to half that in a few weeks. Currently Moria is a humanitarian disaster; MSF have reported that even children are attempting to commit suicide. Our own response team in Lesvos is struggling with the psychological pressures and MSF, recently stated that since May, at least one person a week is being raped within the camp. The truth is these statistics may be even higher. Half of the victims are boys and girls under 18 and two children as young as 5 years old.

At what stage do we say these conditions are unacceptable for refugees in Europe?

Around 186 000 refugees crossed into Europe last year and UNHCR estimate around 116 000 have entered this year so far. Although down from previous years figures with over 1 million refugees arriving in 2015 alone it is unlikely that this situation is going to go away quickly. It is a basic human right to have access to food, shelter, washing and health facilities. I am shocked and upset that I have to leave people in this position and that despite all our best efforts, we can do little to help beside offer basic medical care and friendship.

I think most people would be shocked to hear of the conditions these people live in within Europe. Many have said that if they had known how bad it was, they would not have left their home countries. A Syrian family with a disabled child said he was seen monthly in a hospital in Turkey and yet they feel abandoned here in Greece. His parents fled during the war, at which stage his mother was heavily pregnant and the stress of the bombings and shootings greatly impacted her pregnancy. As a result, she eventually had a very difficult birth in Turkey and her baby suffered asphyxia. He is now three years old, fed through a tube in his nose and has no sitting balance or head control. He sleeps on a mattress, on the floor in a container.

Predominantly my role in Greece has been working as a physiotherapist, I can provide much needed care and rehabilitation to those who need it. However, I have also been coordinating the project along with a German nurse. I have been arranging appointments for people the red cross have not made; putting vulnerable homeless families in contact with the right organisations to provide shelter and discussing with a legal volunteer team the legalities to the police evictions and retention of the refugees possessions which I believe is in violation of the refugees rights. We have been working with the new camp manager to try and find containers for the most vulnerable and ill children and adults, as well as working out a way we can improve the effectiveness of the medical care we give.

Ultimately the people in Europe need to open their eyes and hearts to this situation. Greece, chronically underfunded and struggling with their own economy needs more support from the EU and UN to improve the basic circumstances of the thousands of migrants that arrive weekly, risking their lives. We need to share the burden of the crisis amongst Europe to relieve pressure on countries like Greece, Italy and Spain before it is too late and we need raise awareness of the reasons why these people are making these perilous journeys to Europe to eradicate the racism associated. However, until then, if anyone reading this believes this is a worthy cause then please donate to my just giving page. This work means a great deal to me. I was extremely upset the other day when we had to leave one of the refugees I am close to on the streets for the night. We treat him like a friend and then we have to leave him to this awful situation and it was truly heartbreaking. If I could do, more I would, I have five more weeks to try and make as much as a contribution as possible. All of our work is funded by volunteers and by donations. If anyone wants to contribute to my work and all that I am doing please visit my just giving page. None of this work would be possible without support and it scares me to think how the refugees would manage without any support from our organisation.

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