Earth Medicine: a natural health centre in a refugee camp

Inspired by reading about Sarah Budd’s volunteering work with Earth Medicine, Houri Alavi decided to join her in September on her return trip to Lesbos, Greece

Houri Alavi

Member: East Sussex

When Sohrab checked us through security, the sound of our light-hearted chit chat and the soft Afghani music was abruptly disrupted by a distressed man running towards our car shouting ‘Fire, fire!’ It took a few moments to register what was going on.

Dark smoke was raising from a container. By the time the fire engines arrived, one container had already burnt down, with a second and third on their way to being irreversibly damaged. Fortunately, no one was physically hurt. Two of the tenants – a mother and her son – had been off site, dealing with legal paperwork, while one of her two daughters had been interpreting and the other was elsewhere on site.

Within minutes, our destination, Earth Medicine’s onsite container clinic, became the refuge of a shock-stricken community, as people gathered for safety, crying. Presumably not just for this fire, but for other losses too.

Earth Medicine Physical Rehabilitation is a local charity serving the needs of the migrant population of the camp on the Greek island of Lesbos. You may remember reading Sarah Budd’s account in Acu. this spring of her initial volunteering work with the charity in January 2022. It was that article which inspired me to contact Sarah to see if and how I could apply to join the volunteering team. Before long, we were discussing possible dates to go, to fit in with other volunteers.

One of the many appealing features of this project is that through teaming up with other charities, such as Acupuncture Sans Frontières (ASF) and Homeopaths Without Borders (HWB), they can offer a running programme of volunteers, so both patients and volunteers are assured of some continuity of care.

Getting to know the ropes

In preparation for the work, I completed trauma training with ASF, as well as reviewing NADA and Battlefield Acupuncture protocols, both online and with colleagues locally. My previous teaching experience with migrants here in the UK was beneficial; many of the children I used to teach would have come through camps such as this, and sharing a common language proved invaluable in making connections and gaining trust. Though this is not a necessity as there is often access to interpreters.

Additionally, I did some fundraising for the project. I also continued developing the positive relationship Sarah had started with Scarboroughs Acupuncture Supplies, who kindly donated much equipment as well offering us huge discounts. We are so grateful to them, and to all the family and friends who made donations.

Life on the camp is at best extremely harsh physically, mentally and emotionally. The unimaginable suffering that people have endured long before leaving their mother countries and the treacherous journeys they have undertaken, all have long-term traumatising effects even before their arrival. It is not their choice to leave their homes, to make the journey and arrive in such a place. Some are there for months, others for years, often witnessing and undergoing compounding hardships to those they have escaped.

Since Sarah’s first visit Earth Medicine now offer two sites for treatments. One is a beautiful, converted house in the centre of town, about 15 minutes’ drive from the camp. Surrounded my lemon, pomegranate and walnut trees, and a vibrant vegetable garden, the house has been converted into a clinic with wheelchair access and three treatment rooms. There’s a shower, kitchen and dining area where patients can eat a homemade meal, perhaps their first in a long while. Patients are driven from the camp to the clinic and spend a long morning there, receiving treatment and eating heartily. It’s a peaceful, lush and nourishing environment after the harsh dusty terrain of the camp.

The newer on-site container clinic offers ease of access and is a hub of activity with treatments, advice, and a dispensary for homeopathic and nutritional remedies. It was only just operational when we arrived, with the hope of adding additional containers to create more space for treatments close to the camp.

Samira

One of my first sessions was with Samira, with whom I shared a language. She lay on the couch, sobbing throughout. She’d already had a couple of months’ worth of acupuncture and physiotherapy for the broken and badly reconstructed shoulder she’d sustained through domestic violence. A child bride, she brought up her stepchildren and had two of her own before her husband physically threw her and his sons out to accommodate his new bride.

Samira made her way to neighbouring Iran as the regime in Afghanistan would not support a single female parent. There, she worked illegally as a domestic worker, until the authorities caught up with her and her sons and threatened to deport them. On they went to the next neighbouring country, Turkey, where she had ‘cheap’ surgery for her shoulder

and subsequently paid traffickers to bring them to Greece. Before embarking onto the dingy, the traffickers told her there wasn’t enough room for her older 15-year-old son and that he would have to follow in a different boat. I later understood this practice is common and is called ‘misplacement’.

Months of despair followed – Samira not knowing when, if and how her teenage son would make it and unable to contact him directly as neither had mobiles. By the time I saw her, after two failed attempts and several nights and days of living wild in woods with no food, he had finally made his way across the sea to a different camp in another part of Greece. But now with no papers – they all got lost at sea – Samira had to convince the authorities that they were related and it could take months for them to be reunited. She said that her only way of release was running in the camp – in full flight mode, she would spend hours running, and often screaming, until the camp security would stop her for disturbance. She said she couldn’t stop herself. All she wants is her son back, to be safe, to work and support her family.

Through previous treatments with Earth Medicine she had regained sensation and mobility in her arm and was now pain-free. Through the sobs, she expressed deep gratitude to the practitioners who had saved her from losing the use of her arm and given her the possibility of getting work on the camp. She was cleaning, in return for vouchers which she could trade in for food and clothing. Committed to a better future, Samira did not return for much needed treatment during my time there, for fear of losing her vouchers.

Keemia

Keemia was 28 years old and had been at the camp for two months. Her constant headaches prevented her from sleeping, and her sleep deprivation affected much else. The main source of her headaches was spondylosis of her spine, which she first noticed three years ago and was now affecting her walking. She started a series of daily treatments, a combination of acupuncture and physiotherapy. Within a week her headaches had shifted to being occasional and light, and then dissipated by themselves. Her spine was better organised and she was doing the daily exercises the physio had given her. Her eyes looked lighter; she was smiling. She said the treatments – 12 in total – had transformed her life.

There are many, many more stories like those of Samira and Keemia, and sadly there will continue to be, as governments fail to provide safer routes for people escaping persecution. In a system where asylum seekers are seen as beneficiaries, rather than as individuals with agency and power to make decisions over their futures, a traditional approach is not enough.

Adapting to treatment

The work is both hard and most rewarding. Practical and professional decisions must often be made rapidly, in such different contexts to our usual stable clinical environments. Flexibility of mind and approaches to practice are definite assets.

Treatment dosage was a topic of much discussion – are daily treatments too much for those severely traumatised and depleted? How well would two modalities sit together in one day? Should acupuncture be given on the same day as homeopathy? (We decided not.) Such conversations about healing and our different medicines were often had with our physio and homeopath colleagues, each of us learning from the other as we negotiated the time, space and resources available to us, as well as what best suited each patient in that moment.

While outcomes were positive, the length of time those benefits held were much more variable than for treatments given at home. Good sleep and nutrition are the cornerstones of health and any enduring benefits of treatment – but in this context both are placed in perpetual jeopardy by the strains of life past and present, together with turbulent living conditions in the camp. Compliance with advice is even less predictable, as are no shows.

The importance of making and holding space, the importance of virtue and harmony in the individual, social, political and cosmic body, becomes an even more essential aspect in cultivating medical efficacy. The work reminded me once again of how much east Asian medicine has to offer the world, and with that in mind, I hope to return and encourage anyone reading this to consider volunteering.

You can find out more about volunteering with Earth Medicine here 〉 theearthmedicine.com/become-avolunteer