Faces of Ukraine (Part 4)

written by: Jaron Malyon, LHI Director of Monitoring and Evaluation

Jaron Malyon has been on the ground in Moldova , Romania, Hungary and Poland as part of LHI’s senior admin team as they establish an immediate response to the Ukraine refugee crisis. He speaks fluent Russian and has been incredibly instrumental in creating several local partnerships.

“Help to Ukrainians. Free food and drink.” Sign outside of pop-up transit shelter supported by LHI at a border crossing from Moldova to Romania.

It’s not usually my role to be dispatched to crisis zones, but having lived in Moldova, Hungary, and Russia, it made sense this time. I’ve relied heavily on longtime friends in the region to understand the refugee situation as it unfolds and pinpoint areas where we can contribute.

At LHI, we’re always looking for the gaps in aid/service provisions, which is why I went to Moldova first. The int’l humanitarian response has largely focused on Poland—rightly so, given the massive number of refugees—but Moldova has been completely overwhelmed (in the early days, especially).

The first wave of refugees (mostly wealthier Ukrainians) have largely transited through Moldova and Romania to other destinations, but many in the subsequent waves (mostly poorer) are staying, at least for a while, confused, traumatized, with little resources and no connections abroad, trying to figure out what comes next. One man in a shelter with his wife and babies, told me, “The thing I need most now is advice!”

While orgs and volunteers have mobilized to meet the urgency of the situation, working 20-hr days to evacuate, feed, and shelter refugees, there’s hardly been time to think about what comes next. As we’ve seen from conflicts in other parts of the world, long-term crises will play out for years in countries neighboring Ukraine, even if they aren’t pulled directly into this war. As a Hungarian friend said the other day, “Hungary didn’t know what to do with 400 Afghans in November. How on earth will they deal with tens of thousands of Ukrainians now?”

At LHI, we’re grateful, honored, and moved by the trust so many donors (including family and friends!!) have put in us to get funds to the front lines and make a meaningful difference for as many people as possible.

📷 cred: Shannon Ashton

Click here to learn more and support LHI’s work for Ukrainian refugees.

Jaron Malyon on the ground with LHI in Moldova.

Faces of Ukraine (Part 3)

written by: Shannon Ashton, LHI Board Member

Shannon Ashton has been on the ground in Moldova with LHI senior admin team members Hayley Smith and Jaron Malyon as they establish LHI’s immediate response to the Ukraine refugee crisis.

Shannon, a professional photographer, has photographed LHI's projects and initiatives in 5 different countries since 2015. Many of LHI's most iconic photos were taken by her.

A local volunteer serves her homemade soups and breads to Ukrainian refugees crossing from Moldova to Romania.

It takes a village, people! I’m filled with utter amazement at the endless giving and love I have been a witness to during my time on the ground here. The countless micro-offerings of love given by complete strangers.

The young adults working round the clock in a pop up refugee centre in Chisinău. The teenager serving as a translator in his spare time. The kindness and comfort given by a Russian driver facilitating relief efforts. Aid workers running buses in the middle of the night out of Odessa to get people to safety. The business partners in Iasi opening a refugee centre in shopping mall in Romania at their own expense. The young Moldovans forming a grass roots task force tackling all sorts of problems. The vested volunteer at the Ukraine border tirelessly answering questions into the night. The man passing out flowers to all the women refugees on International Women’s Day.

We got stuck in the exodus, in a near 5-hour crossing from Moldova to Romania in the middle of the night. Nearly all the vehicle plates queued with us were Ukrainian, along with many buses carrying more Ukrainians. And pictured here, the townspeople at a Moldovan border town opened a makeshift rest depot providing home cooked meals and a smile for crossing refugees stuck in long border queues. Here they offered warm shelter and delicious warm meals as if everyone entering was a welcomed guest visiting their home. They treated us the same. I shall never forget the special moments shared in this little shack. So much love.

There is such good in the world. Even in this place of darkness we find ourselves in, there is something good to find. The people helping.

Click here to learn more and support LHI’s work for Ukrainian refugees.

LHI Founder/Director Hayley Smith (L) and Shannon Ashton (R) in Moldova.

Faces of Ukraine (Part 2)

written by: Hayley Smith, LHI Founder/Director

LHI founder/director Hayley Smith is on the ground in Moldova with other senior admin team members to establish LHI’s immediate response to the Ukraine refugee crisis. She has been visiting several sites run by local organizations to see how we can support both the orgs and also their beneficiaries.

She talked to Oxana at a shelter in Chișinău, Moldova. This is the transcription of their conversation.

Oxana from Odessa. She was so warm, so generous, so kind, so soft-spoken, so humble. Photo by Shannon Ashton.

[You can hear Oxana come down the rickety stairs from the attic apartment of the shelter to a storage room that is now an improvised living room]

Hayley: “Hi! I’m Hayley”

Oxana: “Hi, I’m Oxana” [Oxana knows English]

Hayley: "I want to hug you, but I don’t know if that’s okay, with covid and all”

[Oxana comes in for a long, strong hug]

Hayley: “Where are you from?”

Oxana: “We are from Odessa. We arrived tomorrow, I mean yesterday. We don’t know how many days I will stay. I hope maybe 10 days. I hope that the problems with Russia will be over. I’m here with my daughter. She’s five. Four families live in the apartment."

Hayley: “Are you traveling to family?”

Oxana: “No, I don’t have any family in Europe. I have friends in Poland. I have a sister in California [indicates her shirt], but I don’t know how I can get there. I don’t have a visa. And her husband is Filipino. They aren’t citizens and don’t have a way to get us there. I would rather arrive to Ukraine. I don’t want to live in another country. All of my friends and family are in Ukraine [5 second pause] I don’t understand yet what happened. I don’t understand yet. It happened very fast. I didn’t think it was possible. I still can’t believe. My mind can’t believe why? Why? Why did this happen? It’s very shocking. It’s just political things and we suffer. Now I think about my child. What will happen? What about her future? We can’t live like this forever. I very hope that God will see everything and I can maybe stay 10 days. I very hope and go to my country."

Hayley: “Are your parents in Ukraine? How are they?”

Oxana: “My parents are okay. My husband is live in Ukraine. He wants to live with us but he can’t. And my mother and father I want them to come but they say no, no. Go! We will stay here. It’s our country, it’s our town. My sister, very younger than me, and she says 'Go sister! Go Go Go! Very Faster! Go! No No!' She is very afraid. She has two children and my child. 'Faster! Go with your child now!'"

Hayley: “Do you talk to your husband everyday?”

Oxana: “I talk to my husband everyday. Morning. Afternoon. Evening. We say every day. ‘How is the town?’ ‘What is it like now?’"

Hayley: “Is everything okay there so far?”

Oxana: “No, this is the start. Because Odessa is a very big town, very important, and they want to control port. It is a strategy town or something like that. Because other town like Kharkov and Kyiv are in the middle, but Odessa is on the sea. It is where they can come into Ukraine. We will be safe here and hope the God."

Hayley: “And you have a child?”

Oxana: "Yes, you see my child is playing [upstairs]. She is good. She said, 'oooo! We have so many plans!' She has other girls to play with. She don’t understand. Maybe better this way."

Click here to learn more and support LHI’s work for Ukrainian refugees.

Hayley visits shelters in Chișinău, Moldova

Faces of Ukraine (Part 1)

written by: Shannon Ashton, LHI Board Member

Shannon Ashton has been on the ground in Moldova with LHI senior admin team members Hayley Smith and Jaron Malyon as they establish LHI’s immediate response to the Ukraine refugee crisis.

Shannon, a professional photographer, has photographed LHI's projects and initiatives in 5 different countries since 2015. Many of LHI's most iconic photos were taken by her.

This is Anna who arrived yesterday in Moldova on a bus from Odessa, Ukraine. Early in the dark hours of the morning of February 24th, a "rocket bomb" was dropped on the Odessa airport 7 kilometers from where she lives. Her apartment shook with force, and even though it was dark outside the sky lit up as if it were the sun. They spent three days in a bomb shelter where they couldn't wash or do anything. After a few days she took her son and left Ukraine for Moldova. She didn't want to leave, and had to leave her mother and ailing grandmother behind. They all told her to get out while she could even though they could not. She packed her son's things, enough to last through summer. She currently waits in a shelter in Chisinau hoping to get on a bus to somewhere. Maybe Poland? Spain? She isn't quite sure. 

"Please share this with all the people who don't believe what is happening here is true." 

Her child playing in the background as we spoke, I began to feel such incredible sadness over the upheaval of their lives, having to flee for fear of imminent death. And being forced to leave loved ones behind never knowing if they'll see each other ever again. These lives, lacerated. And the millions of others whose lives are likewise being torn apart by this barbaric war in Ukraine. I am angry at the evil that is causing this. 

We met so many others just like her, and right now thousands more are pouring across various borders out of Ukraine throughout Europe. I have been a witness to many refugees all over the world over the years, and I can say in absolute that this could be any one of us. And that fact alone requires that I do my part to help.

Click here to learn more and support LHI’s work for Ukrainian refugees.

Hayley (L) and Shannon (R) in Moldova.

LHI Refugee Center in Greece: Library Expansion!

by: Hayley Smith, LHI Founder/Director

How does a collection of books in Persian, Greek, English, Arabic, German (and more!) pop up in the small northern town of Serres, Greece? We're here to tell you!

Come in and spend some time at the LHI Refugee Center library!

Some Background

Back when we established the LHI Refugee Center in 2016, we had a basket of books that were available to check out. As both our center and also book collection grew, we were able to establish what is now an airy, welcoming space just for the library.

The children’s section is adorable!

It's an impressive operation! The library is a fully cataloged, circulating collection! All of the books are labeled and organized into categories and languages. There's even an adorable children's book section.

The best part is, any resident from the camp can come check out a book!

Books are now available in Persian, Greek, English, Arabic, German, and more!

An Exciting Development

The two camps we work with recently transitioned from Yazidi-only to a mixed population, with most newcomers being Afghans. We needed Persian books for our library, and fast! So our team on the ground put their heads together and made a plan.

They reached out to an Italian organization called Negah, who then put out a call for Persian books. They brought in an incredible number of books from their supporters.

Edu, our education manager (who speaks Farsi!) also reached out to friends. Some books came from a teacher in Finland, others from a bookstore in Geneva, others from Hamburg, from Iran, and from the US.

And a really amazing donation was 10 signed copies of “The Last Girl” from Nadia's Initiative, an org that advocates for survivors of sexual violence and aims to rebuild communities in crisis. 

The library now contains several signed copies of “Last Girl!”

In total we've collected more than 400 books in Persian, coming from France, USA, Iran, Germany, Switzerland, Finland, and Italy.

The library at the LHI Refugee Center came about the same way all of our projects do: NETWORKING! Thank you to our team, donors and partner orgs for making this development possible!

Click here to learn more about the programs at our Refugee Center in Greece.

A Picture is Worth a Million Words

by: Hayley Smith, LHI Founder/Director

Internally-displaced men await aid distribution in the Kandahar province of Afghanistan in 2021.

For every distribution of aid that leaves our warehouse, we get a report and distribution photos from our partner orgs. You can imagine our surprise when we came upon the image above while looking through the latest batch from our partner org in Afghanistan. Our jaws dropped to the floor.

We were totally convinced that the picture had been taken by a professional photographer, and we wanted to know more about the story behind it.

As it turns out, this photo is actually a quick snapshot, like the other photos in the batch (see more of them below). But this particular image really stood out to us—you can really feel the connection between the person taking the photo and the men waiting for aid distribution to start. It should come as no surprise that the photographer is not an outsider, but also from Afghanistan.

This particular camp hosts internally-displaced persons in the Kandahar province of Afghanistan. They’ve been forced to flee Taliban-led violence and its soul-crushing laws preventing any sort of upward mobility and education.

[post continues below pics]

In this region, like in many of the poorest countries around the world, COVID-19 has brought with it widespread economic devastation. The material needs of families living in such extremely vulnerable circumstances is more substantial than ever. Then there's the health risks associated with living in overcrowded conditions during a pandemic.

Afghanistan has been sent enough COVID-19 vaccination doses to innoculate just above 1% of its population of 38 million people. Due to current supply delays, the UN fears that the country won’t get any additional doses until 2022 at the earliest. And with the highly-contagious Indian variant making its way west to Afghanistan and other poverty-stricken countries, refugees and internally-displaced people there are more vulnerable than ever.

‘Vaccine inequality’ is alive and well, and while LHI can’t send vaccines to Afghanistan, we can most definitely provide hygiene supplies and other material aid to help meet the current needs of refugee and internally-displaced families there.

You can help us get much needed aid supplies to refugee families in Afghanistan and around the world by supporting our We Keep Going campaign. Click on the the button below to learn more.

Introducing LHI💛2G!

by: Hayley Smith, LHI Founder/Director

Hayley forgot to wear her LHI shirt at our refugee center in Greece, but resident volunteer, Abdullah, was totally on the ball!

We are excited to announce our new monthly giving community, LHI2G (LHI Together)! By signing up, you will make an ongoing positive impact in the lives of refugee families everywhere, every day.

Recurring donations will:

1. Help refugee families all year long.

2. Spread your giving out allowing you to make an even bigger difference.

3. Help LHI be better prepared with predictable future support.

And let’s be real here—the biggest perk about being a member of this group is that you only have to SIGN 👏🏼 UP 👏🏼 ONCE! Just choose an amount to pledge each month and let autopay do the rest. I mean, we all do it for our student loan, car, and mortgage payments, so why not get the warm fuzzies from donating to a charitable organization…12 times a year, without even thinking about it!

I want to tell you a little about the name LHI💛2G, both because it means a lot to LHI, and also because we want some validation for finally landing upon something good! We must’ve gone through two hundred ideas (most of mine horrendous) before finally deciding on LHI2G. Please like the name! Please like us! We like you, too!

For the less tech-savvy amongst us, 2G is the text abbreviation for “together,” a word that perfectly encapsulates Lifting Hands International’s tight community of passionate and informed supporters. So when we say 2G, we mean everyone, including our amazing refugee resident volunteers at our program in Greece (like Abdullah, pictured above), all you groups who assemble education kits, partner orgs (both local and international), our army of volunteers, the admin team who keeps LHI running behind the scenes, and so many more!

If LHI 2G doesn’t yet include you, come on down and join our community of monthly givers. In return, you’ll get a really cool sticker and a card from me! And we guarantee it will be much more satisfying than paying your water bill.

We Interrupt Your Regularly Scheduled Programming...

by: Hayley Smith, LHI Founder/Director

Thank you so much for donating to last week’s #GivingTuesday campaign! It was very successful and will help us keep our high-impact programs around the world running and helping those who need it the most. 

The leadup to the campaign brought back some interesting childhood memories. (It ties in at the end, trust me!)

Hayley as a young humanitarian (in the cute little heart dress).

When I was little, my parents didn’t let us watch a lot of TV, but we could get away with it if it was some historical documentary or nature show on PBS. We even got to stay up past our bedtimes every Sunday night to watch Masterpiece Theater all together. But every year brought the same phenomenon: I’m watching some Victorian drama and they’re about to kiss when I’m rudely interrupted just by the dreaded semi-annual pledge drive. 

They had some nerve to interrupt my shows, only to beg for money (although that commemorative Lawrence Welk VHS box set was a pretty tempting incentive). 

The first 50 donors will receive this limited edition Doctor Who plate!*

Fast forward a few decades. Social media has definitely changed how organizations like PBS and and even LHI raise funds. First of all, I don’t have to appear on live TV and threaten to remove Downton Abbey from our regular scheduling. But one thing remains true: LHI does truly depend on people’s individual and collective generosity to keep on going. We do not get government funding. And like many other nonprofits, we have to constantly find new donors, big or small, just to keep running.  LHI simply would and could not operate without supporters like you. 

Thank you to all of you who donated to our #GivingTuesday campaign last week. Because of a little click of the mouse, refugees all over the world get crucial humanitarian aid that they otherwise would not.   

Didn’t donate for #GivingTuesday? It’s never too late to donate to that campaign here on FB (link) or on our website (link).

*JK, you won’t actually receive the plate. But you will help make the winter a little more bearable for a refugee family somewhere!

Hayley’s Hoodie: A Sweatshirt Memoir

Resting after a long day in the field with LHI.

You probably know me as an article of clothing, yet I am so much more than that. I am a pillow on a plane. A comfort in the cold. A pocket for popcorn. A hood to hide Hayley’s face when she walks past the cafe she forgot to pay for a sandwich at 7 months ago. But it's displaying the Lifting Hands International logo of which I am most proud. 

Together with my owner/wearer Hayley, we spread Lifting Hands International's message as we travel the world doing refugee work with LHI. Also, Hayley only has one hoodie, so she doesn't really have another choice. And boy have we had some adventures together! 

Here we are distributing milk goats to Syrian families in Jordan.

Like in Jordan, where we distributed milk goats to Syrian refugees living in remote desert locations. Together we held a newborn goat, greeted wonderful Syrian families, and unloaded dozens of nervous goats from Ahmad’s truck. In fact, by the end of the day, there was quite a bit of goat poo and pee on my left sleeve. It wasn’t a big deal, and it certainly didn’t stop Hayley from wearing me at a local restaurant later that night. 

Another adventure took us to Serres, Greece, where we worked at LHI’s long-term refugee community center. I met a lot of wonderful Yazidi people who came to our center. I even met some LHI t-shirts and we became fast friends. They’re so nice and friendly, just like the team members and Yazidi resident volunteers who wear them! 

That’s me with Hayley in London!

Sometimes we'll do a side trip to Eastern Europe to fuel Hayley's addiction to history. Did you know that Warsaw was 90% destroyed in WWII? I do, but only because Hayley has repeated that fact at least 30 times in casual conversations since then. 

Now you can have adventures like these by purchasing some LHI gear of your own! 100% of the proceeds come right back to LHI so that we can keep running and growing our high-impact programs around the world. 

We can’t wait to hear about all the places you go or the local delicacies that get spilled on you by your owner!

SHOW THE WORLD THAT YOU SUPPORT REFUGEES!

You’ve seen LHI gear like Hayley’s hoodie worn by our amazing team members around the world. Now you can help spread awareness about our work by wearing your own LHI gear! 100% of the proceeds from purchases support our programs that have benefitted over 500,000 refugees around the world. Get yours today!

Refugee Work at Home: Granite School District

by: Hayley Smith, LHI Founder/Director

LHI provides humanitarian aid to refugees, both at home and abroad. This post will focus on the “at home” part of our mission statement. It is post 1 of 3 in a series about our partnership with Granite Education Foundation in Salt Lake City, Utah.

A family helps prepare an aid shipment at our warehouse in American Fork, Utah.

I spend a lot of time at our program in Greece, and I always get a kick out of telling our team members, most of whom are European, that we also have a huge warehouse in Utah. Before they ask about the warehouse, they’ll inevitably ask, “Isn’t Utah where [insert stereotype]?” After a brief clarifying lesson about National Parks, green jello with shredded carrots, and filming locations for High School Musical—and how I’m from Texas not Utah—we finally arrive at the absolute best thing about Utah: its passion for refugee work!

Even the smallest volunteers help out!

The state of Utah has long been a champion of refugee resettlement, taking in tens and thousands of refugees from all over the world over the course of several decades, no matter the current overall political attitude towards refugee resettlement. That being said, limited funding is always an issue for all states, and especially challenging for resettlement agencies responsible for putting refugees on their path to integration. This is a huge process that starts with identifying housing, enrolling kids in school, providing adult education, finding employment, and getting set up with basic medical care.

Volunteers help sort through items donated through our Amazon Wishlist.

Refugees are often resettled in low socioeconomic-level neighborhoods in urban centers, bringing a different set of challenges altogether. Take Salt Lake City, Utah for example: 70% of the entire state’s refugee population is resettled within the borders of ONE school district alone—Granite School District in Salt Lake City. This is where our Lifting Hands of Welcome program (operated out of our humanitarian aid warehouse in nearby American Fork) comes into play… Stay tuned to learn more!

In our next post, we will talk about how we got connected with the Granite Education Foundation and how we help underprivileged refugee families that live in the Granite School District.

Click here to learn more about our Lifting Hands of Welcome program that assists resettled refugees in Utah.

AN UPDATE FROM HAYLEY: ON THE GROUND IN SERRES, GREECE

Hayley Smith, founder/director of LHI, is on the ground at the LHI Refugee Center in Serres, Greece. Here’s her latest report:

Hayley is on the ground helping out at “the field” in Serres, Greece.

Yesterday’s afternoon shift at “the field” was absolutely wonderful (“the field” is what everyone in Greece calls the LHI Refugee Center, learn why here). These 3-hour shifts, which provide additional support since our teachers and volunteers are otherwise engaged, allow for sitting and chatting with the Yazidi residents of the nearby camps—albeit from a distance and through a mask—who are waiting for their classes to start or just come to take a breather from the camps for a while. 

Even though the current heat wave drains me of any energy (and sometimes my will to live), it is an automatic conversation topic. Over the years, we volunteers have learned how to say “galaki gherma”, which means “It’s sooo hot” in Kurmanji. In turn, the camp residents already know how to say “air conditioner” in English. Our solar-powered AC system is, after all, the most essential part of our spaces in the summer (well, 3 out of our 4 spaces. We’re still trying to find funding for the 4th). 

Conversations often go far beyond the weather, opening our respective windows to other cultures and perspectives. I just wish that you could magically appear here and have a chat with the Yazidis! But since you can’t be here, here are some snippets from some of these chats:

1. Chatting with a Fifteen year-old boy, who melted my heart:

Me: “How did you learn such good English?”
Kid: “Here. And my first German class is tomorrow.”

(By the way, his whole family takes classes from us!)

The three boys who helped Hayley weed the garden beds.

2. Three kids, two of whom have special needs, insisting on helping me pull weeds:

“We help you,” or “Look, teacher, look!” when they pull out really big weeds. “Eat!” when they bring back ripe figs from nearby fig trees. 

3. Murad, an older man who runs our community vegetable garden:

“Stop, stop! It’s better to weed at 6 or 7. It’s too hot. Sit in the shade.”

He wasn’t wrong. Side note: He speaks to me in Arabic, which I LOVE! 

Kids enjoy painting and getting messy in the Child-Friendly Space in Serres, Greece.

Government restrictions have temporarily reduced the overall number of refugees who benefit from our services on a daily basis, but the energy that comes from learning and empowerment is still palpable. Not only that, but our Yazidi resident volunteers more than make up for low international volunteer numbers in a beautiful way; our remote learning program also allows people to learn and do healing activities from their caravans in the camp; and despite the mandatory face masks, the eyes will always show when people are smiling!

Click here to learn more about our Refugee Center in Serres, Greece.

WE KEEP GOING: PART 10

Quarantined… in Greece!

by: Hayley Smith, LHI Founder/Director

The balcony view is so beautiful!

Hayley here, reporting from Serres, Greece. After one failed attempt at getting into the EU a few weeks ago, I’m certainly glad to be sitting here on the balcony of LHI team apartment 1 writing to you. Navigating the tricky EU ban on US citizens wasn’t easy, even with invoking the humanitarian exception to the ban. But here we are on day #3 of team quarantine!

Last night’s dinner on the balcony.

There are six of us in this quarantine set. We’ve got Iñigo from the Basque country Spain, Natalie from the Netherlands, Maddie from England, Jana from Germany, and Katie from Scotland. Apart from borrowing a bread pan from a distance, we’ve had zero contact with the team currently on the ground, let alone anyone else in Serres, in order to prevent the potential spread of COVID-19. It’s not easy for some of our team members to be in Greece and not be nursing an iced coffee! 

You may suspect that I’m writing this post simply out of boredom, since 5 other volunteers and I have 11 more days of quarantine. But trust me, we are all excited to be here and tell you all about it, especially after months of lockdown. I’m even waiting to eat Iñigo’s homemade Spanish tortilla while writing this. (Spanish tortillas are baked omelettes with potatoes, and in Inigo’s recipe, onions). 

Luckily, LHI tends to attract some of the nicest and smartest people in the world, so quarantine has been painless and pleasant. We take turns cooking for each other, play lots of card games, spend time soaking our feet in the river park (where there are very few people), and talk. We’ve tackled subjects anywhere from cooking to the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. Did I mention that it’s in the high-90s with high humidity and no air conditioning? 

Card games get us through the day. And working on this blog post…

As pleasant a group as this is, we are keeping our eye on the prize, which is finally getting to work on the ground with the Yazidi refugees who come to the LHI Refugee Center to learn, to teach and to heal. We are ready and waiting.

Our own experiences with lockdown have given many of us the opportunity to develop more empathy for those in more difficult circumstances, such as our refugee brothers and sisters throughout the world who have been experiencing such struggles for years: useless passports, being confined to one location, canceled life plans, and perhaps the hardest thing, uncertainty about the future. 

Jana (in the shorts) is a black belt in Tae Kwon Do. Natalie is not…

This being said, we can’t undermine our various struggles and suffering during this time. Whether we are in quarantine, managing restless kids doing online school, working on the front lines, living in refugee camps, etc., we’re all here for one another, and we will keep going!

Click here to learn more about our Refugee Center in Serres, Greece.

WE KEEP GOING: PART 9

We Keep Going Because They Keep Going

In the early hours of August 3, 2014, ISIS fighters flooded out of their bases in Syria and Iraq and swept across the Sinjar region of northern Iraq, home to the majority of the world’s Yazidis, a distinct religious community whose beliefs and practice span thousands of years. Within days of the attack, reports emerged of ISIS committing unimaginable atrocities against the Yazidi community. 

Many of the Yazidis who survived the ISIS attacks fled through Turkey to Greece.

A number of Yazidis that we work with in Serres, Greece were brave enough to share their stories with us. This is Guli’s story.

PART 1

Our village wasn’t attacked as early as other villages, so we had no idea what was happening. I was spending time with my children and their spouses at home, which was located near the hospital. Suddenly, we started seeing many injured people being brought there. One of my sons went to the hospital to find out what had happened. The injured people told him that everyone needs to flee because ISIS was coming. I told my son that we need to flee, too, but he was confident that the Peshmerga militia would save us. So we stayed put.

The next day, the city was almost empty, and our neighbors told us, “You need to flee, you need to flee.” They were saying that in other villages ISIS was separating people, killing men and taking women. My son said, “This can’t be happening,” so he took his gun and things to confront ISIS. My daughter said, “Are you crazy? Are you going to war? They beheaded all your friends, and they will behead you too.” But he was still focused, saying, “Things like this shouldn’t happen, I will go and fight.”

My son’s best friend called him when he was on his way to fight and said, “Are you stupid? Are you crazy? We are in the mountains right now. They are killing us. We saw how they beheaded people. Why are you still in the Sinjar area? You need to flee right now. They will do the same with you.” So my son came back.

By this time, it was 9:30 AM, and my mother said we needed to leave immediately. My son agreed. I said, “I told you.” He said, “They beheaded all my friends already.”

My son took off his military clothes, because he knew they would kill him right away and behead him. We had to wake up the children. They didn’t know what was going on. We didn’t even eat. I was like a crazy woman, waking them up, saying we needed to leave. We were the only ones still in the area. We heard that the roads leading out of Sinjar were completely blocked with thousands of people trying to flee. We didn’t even try to take our car. We had to leave on foot.

PART 2

After we fled our village, we saw the people coming from Sibur, the first place that was attacked, and they were covered in blood. They had broken arms. They didn’t have any shoes. They were hungry and thirsty. We were so exhausted already, but there were so many people crowded on the streets that there was no place to sit and rest.

There was a temple in the Sinjar area near where we lived, where we worshipped and where our relatives and ancestors of old were buried. Suddenly, it exploded right in front of us. They had already started to bomb our temples. 

We finally found a way out of the city through a tunnel, but people came out of the tunnel saying that there were ISIS soldiers waiting for us on the other side. So we went around it. We had to run to make it in time before being attacked. I had a water bottle with just this much [a few centimeters] in it , and my son told me, “You need to keep this with you. You’ve got just one kidney and high blood pressure, so you need to watch out.” My son’s son was just a young child, and he didn’t want to take any of my water. I saw how thirsty he was, but he didn’t want to ask me for any water. 

As we walked to the mountain, we passed a woman walking with her three young sons. I realized how thirsty her kids were, and I couldn’t watch anymore. I gave them my water. She said, “No, you need to take it.” I said, “No, it doesn’t matter. It’s like I’m fasting today, I won’t eat and drink today.” When she gave a little bit to one child, the other two went crazy with thirst. People also tried to help her by putting her children on their shoulders, and she tried to hold two of them as they went up the mountain.

We passed a city and thought we could stop and rest there, but then we saw people running away from it saying, “They took our women and young kids. We have to go to the to the mountains.” There was a woman who was scratching her face, it was bloody, and the man with her was crying. I asked, “Why are you crying? What happened?” They said, “They took our three daughters away from us.”

Photo: Washington Post

By the time we reached the mountain, our feet were bloody. The kids were crying, desperate for us to carry them, but we didn’t have any strength, we couldn’t hold them anymore. We reached a stagnant pool of water in the mountain. It was very dirty and full of diseases, but we had to drink it.

We stayed seven nights in the mountains of Sinjar, just trying to survive. All the time there were children crying and screaming. They didn’t have the words to describe how they were feeling. I didn’t know what to do.

PART 3

We finally crossed into Syrian Kurdistan. It was too hot to travel during the day, so it took two nights to get there. We were terrified. It was so hard for us to reach there. We suffered a great deal during that journey.

We waited for a week in Kurdistan and realized that we couldn’t stay there. There was nothing there. So we went straight to Turkey, where we lived in the mountains for four days. We were terrified that a wild animal would attack us or a snake would bite us. Some of the mountains were too high to walk over, so we had to walk around them. Some people died. Kids fell from rocks and died. The Turkish Peshmerga militia came with animals to carry old people and children, but sometimes people would fall off the animals and die, too.

We stayed in Turkey for a year and a half. We reached Greece on the 26th of August. My husband and one son who was injured are still in Turkey, and we are here. One of my daughter’s is still stranded in Iraq.

Yazidis have been spread around. Some are in Germany, some in Iraq, some in Turkey and some in Greece. Five daughters and two sons made it to Germany. One of my sons is married, and has five children there. Two of my daughters aren’t married, and three are. I have seven daughters and four sons all together. Most stayed in Turkey because we didn’t have the money to smuggle us all to Greece. I have my 18-year-old son and my 17-year-old daughter here with me. 

I wish you will share this and spread it the world, share it with everybody. Make a movie out of it, so they can see who we are and what we experienced, and so they can help us.

Click here to learn more about our Refugee Center that provides services to 1,100+ Yazidi refugees in Serres, Greece.

Photos by Shannon Ashton, story collected by Kate Hubrich, LHI volunteer in Serres.

WE KEEP GOING: PART 8

Reopening the Refugee Center in Serres, Greece

by: Hayley Smith, LHI Founder/Director

It’s safe to say that we’ve learned from personal experience how important exercise, mindfulness, personal space, and self-care are during periods of lockdown.

The LHI Greece team modeling their masks.

It’s those very activities that refugees absolutely need to maintain mental and physical well-being during years of displacement and isolation. Ironically, while we were discovering the importance of soothing activities during lockdown, the Yazidis who normally participate in programs at the LHI Refugee Center in Greece had to go without when we temporarily shut down back in March.

Nico and Nick prepared “The Field” after four months of foliage growth.

This being said, we wanted to reopen the center as soon as humanly possible so that genocide victims could have access to structured activities, classes, and recreation away from the camp environment, which can be stifling and monotonous after months or years. 

However, the planning process for reopening the center during a pandemic is enough to scare most people away. Wedding or family reunion planning pale in comparison. It definitely would’ve been easier to just throw down our hands and give up. But, the mission of LHI is, afterall, to provide humanitarian aid to refugees. That means that we keep going, no matter what challenges arise.

So, after lots of planning, the center (lovingly called “The Field” by our beneficiaries) has reopened, an event we’ve been looking forward to for months! Let the healing and learning resume once again! 

Making Italian food from scratch during the 14-day quarantine.

So, what does it take exactly to keep our Yazidi beneficiaries safe from COVID-19? Short answer: a lot of planning. We want to give credit where credit is due. The director and leadership teams of LHI in Greece collectivity spent dozens and dozens of hours planning out every and any potential situation. No rock was left unturned. Some examples of this intense planning include the following results:

How detailed is this risk assessment? And it’s actually much longer than this…

• A 14-day quarantine for team members arriving in Greece, and quite a strict one at that

• Detailed risk assessment 

• A small capacity of people allowed in each space at any given time

• Mandatory face mask policy 

• Social distancing inside and outside spaces 

• No air conditioning, as per Greek requirements (think Greek summer plus tents = hot!)

• And so much more...

We don’t know what the future holds, but whatever happens, we are prepared to keep our beneficiaries safe from the virus. Whatever happens, we’ll keep going.

Click here to learn more about our work in Serres and support the LHI Refugee Center.

WE KEEP GOING: PART 7

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.