Safe Hands in the Moria Refugee Camp in Lesbos: A Starfish Project

Imagine that you are a young mother of three from Syria, and that after fleeing your home with your husband and family, you arrived in Lesbos and have been waiting for months to have your asylum papers processed. You don’t know when that will happen, it could take more than a year, you have been told. You are staying in a tent with other families because the containers are full. You have no privacy. When it is cold you are cold, and when it rains you get wet. You try to keep your family clean and healthy, but there are not enough toilets and showers for everyone. In addition, you are afraid to leave the tent at night because some of the men without families drink too much and harass you and the other women.

You have heard that a strange new disease is killing people all over the world. It has a name but you cannot remember it. You don’t know what the symptoms are, and you don’t know what to do to protect yourself and your family. What you do know is that the camp is on lockdown, which means that no one can leave. This is especially hard on the men, including your husband. They have been used to feeling at least a little bit free when they walked outside the camp. Now they feel like they are in prison. They get angry easily, and this makes life harder for you and the other women. Continue reading “Safe Hands in the Moria Refugee Camp in Lesbos: A Starfish Project”