Serres Beginnings: Moving Back In
by: Hayley Smith, LHI Founder/Director
This post is a continuation of last week’s story about how LHI’s Refugee Center in Greece got started. To read the first part of the story, click here.
Isoboxes were a welcome upgrade in Serres Camp from the rustic tents with dirt floors.
In the summer of 2017 with Serres Camp all fixed up and ready to safely host refugees again, the Yazidis were moved back to the camp to get settled in their new isobox accommodations. Imagine the relief they felt that they no longer had to live in rustic tents with dirt floors that were totally open to the elements!
But before we had time to celebrate the new camp, a new obstacle came up: Greece announced a new law prohibiting hundreds of non-UN nonprofits like LHI from entering dozens of camps all over the country. UN affiliates were to manage camps in close collaboration with Greece, and small, grassroots groups were no longer welcome inside. This was a difficult time for many groups around the country, and many were forced to give up and leave. But leaving was the last thing we wanted to consider.
LHI’s classes and distributions continued in a public park after having to leave the camp.
Suddenly we had nowhere to host our activities, but we were lucky enough to find an abandoned park as a temporary location for our classes. In the meantime, we searched the area for a building or land to rent for a more sustainable solution. Our search kept hitting obstacle after obstacle and lasted months rather than weeks. Despite a long walk in scorching heat, Yazidis kept showing up at the park for language and fitness classes, so we refused to give up our search. We kept going.
The field that would become LHI’s Refugee Center in Serres, Greece.
With the help of a few sympathetic locals, we managed to rent a parcel of land about 100 meters from the camp. It was uncultivated farmland and we were not allowed to build permanent structures. So we cleared it, leveled it, put down gravel, and built four large, high capacity, semi-permanent tent structures. We didn’t have access to the city’s electrical grid, so we installed solar panels. This is where we would run our language, fitness, and arts classes.
Yazidi children proudly display their flag at the 2018 grand opening of LHI’s Refugee Center.
In 2018, we unveiled the “field” as the new and permanent site of the LHI Refugee Center in Serres. The entire camp population walked down to celebrate the dedication in January. They knew they could trust us. They knew they could depend on us. They knew we would do what it takes to meet their needs, because we keep going.
Click here to learn more about our work in Serres and support the LHI Refugee Center.