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There has been a refugee scheme since the summer of 2015. Greece is the first country refugees get
to with the Eurozone. This is causing major problems, and the refugees are just seen as burdens not
people in trouble. There is no talk about the war being the cause of the problem or discussion
around disarmament. There is an increase of far right groups across Europe (most notably – Golden
Dawn) with a number of vicious attacks on refugees and the people trying to help them. But on the
flip side there has been some great compassion from the left with Greeks opening their homes to
refugees despite in a crisis themselves which is helping to slowly reform the mentality.
The government is not tabling any kind of thorough or viable proposal with the refugee issue just
simply accepting people and making no Euros from it – in the long run Greece will be left to ruin to
save the rest of the EU from dealing with the crisis. The EU want to turn the islands of Greece – their
main source of income via tourists – into refugee islands in order to release the ‘burden’ elsewhere.
Zoe told us of how in Denmark valuables are being taken off refugees upon entering as payment for
them! Hitler would be proud.
Social Kitchen Athens:
The Other Human
We visited another project that helped homeless people – called the Social Kitchen. Before we met
the founder we spoke to one of the volunteers who gave us her interpretation on what is was like
living in Athens at this time.
When SYRIZA came into power, a lot of people had hope for a better life but in fact things are worse
than they were before an the problem is that people expected too much. In the work that she does,
she makes sure that people have food but she believes that there needs to be more. She didn’t
believe that the public knew the true meaning of solidarity.
The project has been running for over 5 years and every day there will be about 10 people
volunteering but there are just 5 core people that work there all over Greece though there are little
groups attempting to do the same. The main aim of the project is to bring people and communities
together, to work together and share good practice of how they can make change.
Penny
Penny was a volunteer at Costas project and she spoke to us at length whilst we waited for Costas.
She explained how the night before whilst we were meeting with Zoe the far right Nazi groups were
having a ‘celebration’ across Europe. In Greece they were particularly violent as lots had travelled
over from Germany in order to tell the refugees they weren’t welcome. They didn’t just attack the
refugees but the volunteers who were trying to help and protect them too.
People are not fighting back at them as they are afraid to do so. Most do not understand the whole
situation around the refugees or Greece ad they are not facing it themselves.
She told us in Greece anarchists are buying buildings and filling them with people to create
communities but they are having issues as there is a lot if in house fighting and no direction/ goal to
what they want to achieve.
According to Penny it is very difficult trying to help others without offending them but at the kitchen
the visitors/ users are helping themselves. The project is not about helping someone to make you
feel better it is about educating people and communities about what solidarity actually means,