A completely overcrowded camp with insufficient hygienic conditions: The pictures from the Moria refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos caused horror even before the Corona crisis. Help is urgently needed. An organization from Gröbenzell works for the children in the camp.
Gröbenzell - Valeska Gleser was in Lesvos for two weeks in August last year. The former Gröbenzeller, who now lives in Herdecke in North Rhine-Westphalia, found traumatized children there who lived under sometimes unworthy conditions. "There are hardly any retreats, mattresses lie on mattresses in the tents," says the 36-year-old. In summer, the atmosphere was still comparatively fine. "But you could clearly see that the conditions get bad in the rain or cold."
Severely traumatized
Gleser was on behalf of “Start International” in Lesbos. Some Gröbenzeller started under the umbrella of the Elisabeth Gast Foundation in 2006 to support children after wars, natural disasters or flight. "We look after children wherever they have to deal with traumatic experiences," says Myrtha Faltin from the Start International board. The organization, which has since been purely funded by donations, was officially founded in 2008 and has since performed around 150 missions worldwide from Georgia to Libya and Haiti to Nepal and the Philippines.
Shelters in the warehouse
The Gröbenzeller helpers have been working at Camp Moria since the end of 2018. As part of their efforts, so-called child-friendly spaces are being built there - rooms in which children can find protection and security as well as a child-friendly approach in the midst of chaos. In small teams of six to seven people, the helpers promote the psychological resilience of the traumatized children.
The focus is on the artistic-pedagogical work - hence the special spelling of the name, as Faltin explains: "Start means that we start when we are needed." The organization itself writes its name with an uppercase ART (English for art ) in this. So actually like this: stART International.
The helpers belong to a network of therapists and educators, all of whom also have artistic priorities. There are art therapists, Gleser is a music teacher and plays the harp. The camp on Lesbos is divided into several areas.
"There is an area with young people, one with women with children and one for women only," says the former Gröbenzeller. There is also a so-called safe zone in which unaccompanied minors live. "You can only get in there if you are accompanied."
Play in a confined space
At work, the helpers tried to establish a rhythm and structure in the lives of the frightened children. In the mornings, the children could tinker, sing, dance or tie bracelets outside the tent city in the jungle. In the afternoon we went to the sometimes very cramped areas of the camp. "Because of the lack of space, we played concentration games here, for example - what the space just gave."
For her, working with Lesbos - like other helpers - was not over. In April this year, 47 unaccompanied children and adolescents from Afghanistan, Eritrea and Syria were flown out of the Greek camps to Germany. The refugees, aged between four and 17, were quarantined for three weeks in Bad Essen in the Osnabrück region, where they were also looked after by Gleser and her colleagues. For some of the children, there was joy of seeing them again when they recognized the t-shirts of the helpers who had helped them in the camp.
One encounter stuck particularly with Gleser: A mother saw her four and six year old children again after three years after their father had kidnapped them to Iraq. "It was a great experience for the mother, even if the little one no longer recognized her."