Fundraising by Vittoria Arnaldi

Hello, I am Vittoria and this fall I decided to leave with Operation Dove - Nonviolent Peace Corps of the Pope John XXIII Community - to learn about the reality of migrant people in Greece. This choice was born out of a strong need to show my support for people on the move who in our continent believe they will find new possibilities for life and find themselves, instead, rejected and excluded by countries that proclaim the importance of the right to asylum.

I believe in a 'Europe of rights but the current reality does not reflect the Union I would like. Therefore, in these months I hope to fill this gap in a small way by placing myself alongside those who have left everything behind and risked their lives to come seeking refuge.

People on the move in Greece experience particularly harsh conditions. While waiting for confirmation or rejection of their asylum claims, they spend years locked up in refugee camps, overcrowded places with undignified living conditions and far from population centers. Waiting without certainty for permits wears down migrant people who lose faith in an asylum system that seems unwilling to accommodate anyone. Right now, the presence of doctors and social workers and psychologists is scarce, and the lack of public transportation connecting the camps to Athens makes it more difficult to find work and receive treatment or care. These are the most prison-like places I have ever seen, with security guards manning them and the impossibility for most outsiders to access them. The areas outside the camp are often provincial roads crossed by trucks. Children therefore find themselves playing at the edge of these and the barbed wire fences that surround the camps.

As Operation Dove volunteers, we go to meet those who live in the camps and in Athens and listen to their stories and dreams. We try to support people in their needs, such as the need to connect with other support organizations, to move from the camps to get to the city, or to be accompanied to hospitals where there is a lack of interpreters. But it is particularly the relationship of friendship and the sharing of moments that are the basis of our whole presence here. As much as the people on the move have many material needs, they are children and adults who first and foremost need to be seen by this Europe that closes its borders. Sharing a lunch outside the camp, cooking together, taking a tour of the city, spending a day drinking tea with friends who are happy to have you along, are rich moments for them as well as for us. The isolation surrounding asylum seekers and the lack of consideration of them as people are obvious realities and cause much pain.

Can you help support this project? Every contribution is important and will serve to continue to be there for people on the move!