Lift Lesvos - Project Report 2016

THE LIFT PROJECT: LESVOS, GREECE

FINAL REPORT Eve Żórawska Melanie Wolowiec Oona Anttila -SGT STUDIO Aalto University 30.5.2016

liftlesvos@gmail.com liftlesvos.wix.com/home facebook.com/liftlesvos

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The Lift project is an initiative started by three students from Aalto University as part of the Sustainable Global Technologies program. The project aims to respond to the humanitarian and the environmental crisis on Lesvos, Greece that occurred due to the large migration of refugees into Europe.

island. Conservative estimates claim there are as much as 500 000 life jackets on the island, in addition to countless wooden and rubber boats. According to the mayor’s office of Mytilene, the island’s capital, the situation is “an environmental ticking time bomb” due to the absence of suitable recycling facilities.

The LIFT project consists of a multidisciplinary team of international students specializing in Sustainability in the fields of Architecture, Planning and Business. When the team received their project brief in January this year, the objective was to find solutions to relief the refugee crisis on the island of Lesvos, Greece. The Greek island, which is located just about 10 km away from the Turkish coast, has experienced an unprecedented increase of refugees coming by boat in the past few months, with the majority coming from war torn Syria and Afghanistan.

The Lift project strives to physically lift lifejackets and other debris from Lesvos beaches, develop ideas to lift found materials from their original to upcycled designs, and lift the mindset of Finnish people and beyond towards a positive perception of refugees. Teaming up with a Lesvos based NGO, Lighthouse Relief, the team traveled to the site in March 2016. The students worked on situation assessment, beach cleaning and volunteering in Moria camp, the main registration for refugees on the island.

After a first analysis of the situation, the team decided to focus their efforts on the environmental crisis, which developed due to the large amount of life jackets and rubber dinghies left on the shores of the

Back in Finland, the team started to develop ideas to up-cycle the material into new products. Along the way, the team strives to raise awareness through publications on social media and exhibitions of their work.

TABLE OF CONTENTS Annex: 1

Introduction Objectives, development and results in brief Our group

1

2

Background Refugee Crisis: Facts and Figures Current Lesvos, Greece Environmental ticking time bomb

3

Project beneficiaries

4

Project sustainability

3 The Lift Project

Project Breakdown and Timeline

4 Lift 1

Cleaning activities, working inside Moria Camp Interviews 5

Lift 2 Lifting debris and waste into second and third life ideas Upcylcing process

6

Lift 3 Communication: social media and other channels.

7 Conclusion

Our final remarks Acknowledgements

Lesvos Island in further detail

2 NGOS

5 Interviews

Alison Terry-Evans, Dirty Girls of Lesvos Island

Christophoros Schuff, Orthodox Priest and UNHCR Camp Coordinator 6

Exhibition texts

1. INTRODUCTION

WHAT

Lift is a project conducted by three students from Aalto University, Finland. The project aims to respond to the current environmental and humanitarian crisis on Lesvos, Greece that developed due to the large arrival of refugees to Europe.

The project aims to gain knowledge on existing life jacket upcycling projects, develop new design ideas to upcycle the life jackets and contribute to existing efforts of cleaning up the local environment of Lesvos. The project will also serve as a platform to shed light on the environmental crisis in Lesvos, the creative efforts of projects turning a negative situation into a positive tomorrow as well as telling the story of today’s refugees in Europe.

HOW

The name of “the LIFT project” has a threefold meaning: Physically LIFTing the life jackets in order to clean the beaches of Lesvos Developing ideas to LIFT life jackets and other debris from their original use to their next life LIFTing the mindset of Europeans towards a more positive view on refugees

WHEN

As this project is based on a university course, the project has a total duration of about four months, from end of January to May 2016.

The project is structured into three main parts: a background study, a field trip in March 2016, and further documentation and communication of the results.

WHO IS THE LIFT PROJECT?

Oona Anttila

Melanie Wolowiec

Eve Żórawska

M.Sc Creative Sustainability Business

M.Sc Creative Sustainability Business

Double Master in Sustainable Urban Transitions M.Sc Architecture & Planning

Photography & Video NGO Contact Communication

Management & Organization Financial Planning

Editor & Communication Graphic Design & Visuals Social Media

+ Kristjana Adalgeirsdottir Architect & Project Researcher Aalto University School of Architecture Tutoring Professor

CONTACT: FACEBOOK WEB

EMAIL

The Lift Project: Lesvos liftlesvos.wix.com/home liftlesvos@gmail.com

PHOTO CREDIT: KRISTJANA AÐALGEIRSDÓTTIR

2. BACKGROUND

2.1 THE BIG PICTURE

Wars and political conflicts in Africa, the Levant and Afghanistan had resulted, and still do, in millions of people being displaced. The toll of the conflicts were not confined to the countries where they originated, it spread to neighbouring countries and Europe. Millions of asylum seekers have fled their countries to escape death, hunger, political and economical hardship to seek better lives in Europe.

However, with an economically hit Europe and the large and increasing influx of asylum seekers, Europe is more divided on how to deal with the crisis.1

Greece is one of the hardest hit countries in the EU by the current situation. This is primarily due to its geographical location, its financial crisis and the lack of a common European consensus on handling the refugee crisis. In 2015, more than a million refugees and asylum seekers arrived to Greece, 85% of whom are from war torn countries. The largest portion of migrants, around 40%, are coming from Syria while around 20% are coming from Afghanistan.

As of January 2016, Greece received more than 73 000 people of concern.2

Lesvos, a Greek island located just about 10 km away from Turkey, has one of the main refugee reception centres located in Moria. The number of refugees arriving has been overwhelming the island at around 3000 per day in the fall of 2015. On a peak day in October 2015, 10 000 people would arrive by boat 2. Moria registration centre could process at the maximum only 1 300 applications per day. Apart from the burden of the migrant crisis, Lesvos is also facing an environmental crisis.1 -Sources:

60 000 000 Over 60 Million people are currently displaced due to War and political unrest worldwide.

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1. Obstacle course to Europe, A Policy-Made Humanitarian Crisis at EU Borders. (2015). Retrieved 29 May 2016, from https://www.doctorswithoutborders. org/sites/usa/files/msf_obstacle_course_to_europe_ report2.pdf 2. (UNHCR), U. (2016). UNHCR Refugees/ Migrants Emergency Response - Mediterranean.

UNHCR Refugees/Migrants Emergency Response Mediterranean. Retrieved 29 May 2016, from http:// data.unhcr.org/mediterranean/regional.php

1 000 000 Approximately 1 Million asylum seekers have fled to Europe.

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PHOTO CREDIT: LIGHTHOUSE RELIEF

2.2 FACTS AND FIGURES

The year 2015 will be remembered as the year with a major spike in number of people seeking asylum in Europe.

The UNHCR reported 1 015 078 arrivals to Europe by sea in 2015 – which means an almost fivefold increase in numbers compared to the previous year.

589 076

40%

136

Total refugees arriving by boats to Lesvos Island from January 1st 2015 to April 5th 2016.

89 058 have already been reported this year.

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40% of arriving refugees are children. 37% are men and 22% are women.

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138 people have been reported dead, 24 missing in 2016 alone.

In 2015, 272 were reported dead and 152 are still missing.

The majority of deaths are women and children.

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-Source: http://data.unhcr.org/Mediterranean/country.php?id=83

2.3 ENVIRONMENTAL CRISIS

Since all people arriving to Lesvos come by boats and most of them would wear a life jacket, the situation has resulted in an unmanageable amount of waste. It has been estimated that there are at least half a million life jackets and 10 000 boats piling on Lesvos1. The main material of a life jacket is plastic in the form of nylon textile and foam, which are very often treated with flame retardant. It also has buckles, straps and reflectors. In combination with the lack of adequate waste management on Lesvos, this has created a pressing eco crisis. In Mytilini, the capital of Lesvos, the mayor’s office found clear words to describe the situation: “It is an environmental ticking time bomb, a plastic tsunami.” 2

The rough terrain of the island makes it difficult for trucks to reach the mound of dumped life jackets. Oftentimes, the coastline has to be accessed by boats to transport the waste to locations where the council can collect it. Many local residents and volunteers have been continuously helping in the clean up efforts.

However, there are no appropriate waste

management facilities on the island. The council’s makeshift solution is to dump all waste in an open air landfill located in an in-country valley in the north of Lesvos.

The landfill has come to be known as the ‘life jacket graveyard’ due to the gloomy atmosphere of the place.

-Sources: 1. ECO Relief. (2016). Lighthouse Relief. Retrieved 29 May 2016, from http://www.lighthouserelief.org/eco/ 2. Strickland, P. (2016). Life-jacket mountain a metaphor for Greece’s refugees. Al Jazeera.

Retrieved from http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/ features/2015/12/life-jacket-mountain-metaphorgreece-refugees-151228132054372.html

2.3 ENVIRONMENTAL CRISIS

There have been several initiatives by volunteers in Greece and abroad, although mostly in small scale, to upcycle the waste material.

Ideally this could generate new jobs for the locals and financial support for the NGOs. Some initiatives have also made design interventions that help the refugees on the island. The mayor of Mytilini has also taken a special interest in some of these efforts.

Odyssea: The organization founded by Greek nationals Jai Mexis and Irene Psifidi aims to find a long-term solution to the growing environmental problem. After a long and arduous process to secure permission for their work from Greek authorities, the organization tries to tackle the problem in two ways: by creating products, which can provide immediate relief for the refugees, such as bags and mattresses, and also by designing products to be sold commercially to generate funds1.

Embassy for the Displaced: Stefanos Levidis, a London-based architecture student originally from Athens has established a design-based collective in Dezember 2015 alongside his partner Sofia Georgovassili. Embassy of the Displaced is active between London, Athens and Lesvos trying to find creative solutions to the problem. After recognizing the need for backpacks to help refugees on their onward journey through Europe, the collective designed the NoBorders Backpack to be produced from dinghies and handed out to refugees1.

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Source: 1. Odyssea. (2016). Odyssea.org.gr. Retrieved 29 May 2016, from http://www. odyssea.org.gr/?option=com_content&view=article&id=562&Itemid=1020&lang=en

Source: 1. Embassy for the Displaced. (2016). Facebook.com. Retrieved 29 May 2016, from https://www.facebook.com/DisplacedEmbassy/timeline

3. THE LIFT PROJECT

+ LIFT 1

Physically LIFTing the life jackets in order to clean the beaches of Lesvos

+ LIFT 2

LIFT 3

Developing ideas to LIFT life jackets and other debris from their original use to their next life

LIFTing the mindset of Europeans towards a more positive view on refugees

3.1 PROJECT BREAKDOWN

PROJECT OBJECTIVE

Positively influencing the mindset of Europeans towards refugees.

Raising awareness by telling the story of the life jackets and what is being done.

PROJECT PURPOSE

RESULTS

ACTIVITIES

1

Knowledge gained on possible alternative uses for life jackets (Report)

1a Researching existing

narratives and conducting interviews with current project leaders (10 groups)

1b Material studies of life jackets 1c Researcing ways of reusing the materials

2

A cleaner Lesvos

2a Volunteering in

Lesvos: Cleaning 2 beaches

2b Volunteering for a

local NGO, assisting in life jacket recycling process on the island

3

Active on-going communication

Documentation of our actions:

3a Website and blog [Formal]

3b Creating and

maintaining a Facebook page [Informal]

3c A photo/video collection

3.2 PROJECT TIMELINE

Week 20 Official end of coursework Week 1

Week 4-5

Week 8-9

Week 13-17

Project kick-off on 18.01.2016, starting with background study for 25.1.2016

Final version of the project plan for 22.2.2016

Travel to Lesvos, Greece for 10 days [9.-20.3.2016]

Idea development, design and prototyping

Week 2-3

Week 6-8

Week 12

Week 18

First draft of our project plan for 8.2.2016

NGO contact, fund applications, travel itinerary planning

Pechakucha style midterm presentation [4.4.2016]

Final presentation [16.5.2016] and exhibitions

3.3 PROJECT APPROACH + METHODOLOGY Over the course of our project, we have used various methods to structure our work and help us with the development of our project. These methods have not been separated into clearly defined tasks, but instead their boundaries often merged with respect to the project process.

BACKGROUND RESEARCH

PROJECT PLAN

IN-DEPTH INTERVIEWS

Our project brief was rather vague: ‘Refugees in Europe, destination Lesvos’.

A thorough background analysis was indispensable for idea development, and we started immediately on Day 1 of our project. We found many pressing angles, and over time we were able to develop a picture of how the various issues of the crisis interlink. Policies in regard to the refugees have changed frequently and sometimes on very short notice, which required us to conduct background research over the entire course of our project.

With a first project idea in our heads, we drafted a project plan outlining among other things our objectives, planned activities and an implementation plan. Changes in the political environment forced us to reconsider our original idea and overhaul the project plan altogether. With the help of Vera Pensala as a consultant to our project, we were able to narrow our idea down to specific activities. Although we had to deviate from some of the cornerstones of our plan, the document helped us to constantly reflect upon our project objective and structure our thoughts.

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During our field trip to Lesvos, we had intense discussions with each other, but also interviewed various people with very different views of the crisis. This helped us create a holistic picture of the situation. Although we made a list of possible interview partners beforehand and managed to contact some of them, formal interviews were frequently conducted on short notice. Two interviews have been recorded and later transcribed (see annex).

In addition, we were able to talk to various people in informal interview settings, which was mostly done in form of personal talks in an unstructured way.

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3.3 PROJECT APPROACH + METHODOLOGY

NEEDS ASSESSMENT

IDEA DEVELOPMENT

PROTOTYPING AND DESIGNS

One of our main objectives for our field trip to Lesvos was to conduct a thorough needs assessment. We put our own thoughts and original ideas aside for a few days, in order to be able to listen to people with an open mind and be more aware of the things happening around us. The experiences we got during our two shifts inside Moria camp have been a particularly important contribution to our needs assessment work. The results of the needs assessment have later influenced our idea development phase.

All the experiences have helped us to constantly develop new project ideas.

This is especially true for the time during our field trip. However, only after our field trip to Lesvos were we able to more clearly structure the results of the needs assessment and the input from our interview partners, and as a team we explored various ideas more in-depth.

Finally, based on the feasibility and usability of the ideas in our idea pool, we were able to decide upon the final project deliverable.

Material studies have been an integral part of our project plan. We have visited a former life jacket producer in Finland, who explained to us the characteristics of the material. On Lesvos we started to explore the opportunities and limitations of the material that we found on the shores, mainly rubber from the dinghies and nylon material from discarded life jackets. With the help of teachers at Aalto University, who specialize in textile and material studies, our team was able to develop physical prototypes of our design ideas.

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4.

LIFT 1

Our first LIFT goal was about site assessment, research, cleaning, volunteering and understanding our working environment. The field trip in March enabled our team to get first hand experience of the crisis. We partnered with the NGO Lighthouse Relief to volunteer in their environmental clean-up project as well as in the main registration camp. In addition, we conducted in-depth interviews to get a holistic understanding of the system we were working with.

4.1 CLEANING ACTIVITIES

Since our focus was on the environment, it was crucial for us to contribute to the actual cleaning. The cleaning efforts also helped us to understand the size and severity of what we were dealing with. Furthermore, we were told that the waste was not only causing a great burden on the environment of Lesvos, but it also makes the boat landings dangerous, since people might stumble, sink and get stuck in the piles of lifejackets.

Therefore, we had specified one of the desired results of our project plan as: ‘A cleaner Lesvos’. During our ten days on the island, we have managed to clean three strips of coastline.

In order to do this most effectively, we teamed up with the NGO Lighthouse Relief located in the village Skala Sikaminias.

Lighthouse Relief is a non-profit social enterprise registered in Sweden. It has been established in September 2015 at the height of the refugee crisis on Lesvos, when a small group of young

people from all over the world had realized that they could work more effectively when they collaborated and in response they registered their own organization.

Although Lighthouse Relief originally focused solely on emergency relief for the refugees arriving to Lesvos, the group soon realized the importance of cleaning the environment, which is beneficial for the ecosystem, the local people and the refugees itself. When we arrived to Lesvos, Lighthouse Relief just started to scale up their cleaning operations.

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4.1 CLEANING ACTIVITIES

BEACH 1

SKALA SIKAMINIAS The coastline East of the village Skala Sikaminias is very rocky, and in order to access parts of it, it is required to swim or use a boat. We were given wetsuits, life jackets and helmets to wear from Lighthouse Relief. Although the coastline has been cleaned several times in the previous months, there has been a lot of waste left, because a sturdy boat is required to transport the waste back to places where the council can collect it.

BEACH 2

KAGIA BEACH This pebble beach is a five minute car drive away from Skala Sikaminias and about 500 meters long. As it is easily accessed by car, the beach is a famous tourist spot in the summer months. No special equipment was required for the cleaning. Since we arrived there after a few stormy days, there has been mostly household trash that came to shore with the waves, but we also found considerable amounts of discarded life jacket and dinghies. Furthermore, we collected many personal items such as birth certificates, legal documents and mobile phones.

BEACH 3

KORAKAS LIGHTHOUSE SHORE After a long and strenuous march we arrived at a secluded area of coastline in close proximity to the Korakas Lighthouse.

The area is only accessible by boat or through heavy climbing down the cliff.

Nevertheless, many boats had arrived at that location, presenting us with a horrendous scene of several hundred meters of coastline covered in life jackets and boats of all kinds. Since we did not have a boat to transport the waste, we were only able to pile up the waste along a minor part of the beach and cut up some of the discarded rubber dinghies. Using ordinary knives, the cutting of a single dinghy can take up to half an hour.

4.2 WORKING INSIDE MORIA CAMP

During our field trip, we also had the opportunity to work two shifts in Moria camp, the island’s main registration site. We had not planned to volunteer inside Moria, because we knew that most organizations would only allow long term volunteers inside due to the time it takes to brief new people about the work. However, at the time Lighthouse Relief was in desperate need of volunteers, which is why we were given this opportunity. It turned out to be one of the most important experiences of our project - both for the development of our ideas as well as our personal development.

Moria camp is located just outside a small town in the south-east of Lesvos, in facilities that used to be military barracks. The camp is surrounded by a thick concrete perimeter wall with a razorwire fence on top. We observed how the fence was taken down temporarily when prominent people such as Angelina Jolie came to visit the camp. The living

conditions in the camps were desperate.

One would be lucky if he/she got to sleep in a tent with 40 other people and not on the ground. Our first shift was overnight from 1 am to 9 am. Although it was a very intense experience for everyone on the team, we immediately signed up to volunteer for another shift. The second shift was during the day from 9 am to 5 pm, and our tasks varied a lot.

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PHOTO CREDIT: KRISTJANA AÐALGEIRSDÓTTIR

4.2 WORKING INSIDE MORIA CAMP

MONITORING THE LIGHTHOUSE RELIEF FAMILY COMPOUND The work in Moria camp was divided amongst various NGOs. Lighthouse Relief was responsible for a specific area, called the family compound. The compound was separated from the rest of Moria camp through fences, in order to create a safe environment for the families and single mothers staying inside. In the early morning volunteers had to wake up the people, and tell them to leave the compound in order to clean the rooms. The Lighthouse compound consisted of nine rooms with about 40 people staying in a single room.

Many people had to sleep on blankets on the floor due to the lack of beds. In the afternoon, the families were allowed to get back inside, on a first come first serve basis.

Most families would start to reserve a spot in the line in the early morning hours in order to increase chances to get back inside the compound for the next night. As volunteers, we monitored the compound to ensure a safe environment, distribute clothes and hygiene products when needed, prepare baby formula, comfort people by engaging

in conversations, and distract the children by organizing various games and spontaneous English language classes.

SORTING CLOTHES AT THE WAREHOUSE Although work in the warehouse can be monotonous and physically demanding, it is a crucial part of the relief efforts on the island. Therefore, several NGO’s work together to keep operations running, and all volunteers are asked to spend some shifts in the warehouse. The warehouse is located close to Moria camp in an industrial area.

Clothes and hygiene products that have been donated from different parts of the world need to be sorted according to their category and packed in boxes. These boxes will then be distributed to various camps around the island, in order to offer warm and clean clothes to the people arriving.

WRISTBANDING AT THE RECEPTION TENT Once people arrived to the shore after a successful crossing of the sea, they would

often be put straight onto buses and driven to Moria camp. A registration tent was set up close to the entrance gate, and during our shifts two team members would stay at that tent. When new people arrived to the camp, the volunteers would welcome them, give them a wristband with a consecutive registration number, and count how many men, women and children arrived in the respective group. This first contact would not be the actual registration for asylum seeking in the European Union, but rather to keep track of arrivals and facilitate camp management. Furthermore, it served as a first needs assessment to see how many people were in urgent need of medical help. Once the registration was done and people were given bottles of drinking water, volunteers guided them to different sleeping areas inside the camp. The entire process was overseen by the Greek police.

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4.2 WORKING INSIDE MORIA CAMP

As a gesture of friendship from Finnish children, our team member Oona managed to organize a spontaneous collection of donated soft toys in a Finnish kindergarten.

These toys were taken to Moria camp, where they were then given out to the children inside the family compound. This seemingly small gesture was received with great joy by the children in the camp, who often do not possess any personal items.

Melissa Fleming announced: “Accordingly, and in line with our policy on opposing mandatory detention, we have suspended some of our activities at all closed centres on the islands� 2. The withdrawal of aid organizations has created a vacuum in the camp, with inmates lacking even most basic needs.

When we volunteered inside Moria, residents came and went freely, giving them the opportunity to meet others in one of the cafes set up in front of the camp, or taking a bus to go strolling in the lively port of Mytilini.

Once the deal between the European Union and Turkey came into effect, Moria camp was turned into a closed, guarded detention center. All people arriving after March 20, 2016, would be held under police guard at Moria1. This happened only a few days after we finished our second shift there. Most of the organizations working inside Moria have either cut back their aid or withdrew their work altogether, in order to not be affiliated with a detention camp. When the accord was implemented, UNHCR spokesperson

-Sources: 1. Hope, K. (2016). Contrast of two migrant camps highlights effect of Turkey-EU deal. Financial Times.

Retrieved from http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/14f9b53cf28a-11e5-9f20-c3a047354386.html#axzz4A3lgGXeL 2. Refugees, U. (2016). UNHCR redefines role in Greece as EU-Turkey deal comes into effect. UNHCR. Retrieved 29 May 2016, from http://www.unhcr.org/ en-us/news/briefing/2016/3/56f10d049/unhcr-redefinesrole-greece-eu-turkey-deal-comes-effect.html

PHOTO CREDIT: KRISTJANA AÐALGEIRSDÓTTIR

4.3 INTERVIEWS Interviews helped us develop a better understanding of the situation on Lesvos and see the bigger picture of the current refugee crisis in Europe. They have also been a valuable contribution to the needs assessment phase.

CHRISTOPHOROS Orthodox Priest and UNHCR Camp Coordinator I have not published a single picture of me together with a refugee. I refuse to do it, I have even sent tens of thousands of euros back to organizations because I’ve refused to take pictures and share their logo.

I rather look at us like people helping people, Christians, Muslims, we are the same.

(See transcribed interview in Annex 5: Interviews)

STELIOS Cafe owner in Petra village At first we were open to the refugees coming, of course. We understand that they are fleeing war and great suffering. But now we are also suffering. Tourism is down close to 90%... soon we will be the refugees. It’s killing us.

ALISON Founder of the initiative Dirty Girls of Lesvos Island

HENRY co-founder of the NGO Lighthouse Relief

So it’s a very simple thing. You take clothes, and you recycle them. It’s very simple, and it’s not a big deal - but it sometimes actually is a big deal.

Our ambition is to always support the local community and purchase as much as possible locally, striving for a good collaboration.

(See transcribed interview in Annex 5: Interviews)

5.

LIFT 2

Our second LIFT goal was about researching and developing ideas to transform and redesign life jacket materials towards second life uses. After our field trip we investigated various designs, consulted with Finland’s own life jacket distributor to learn about the materials and partnered with Aalto University Textile Design tutors to help us with production.

5.1 PROBLEM BASED DESIGN SOLUTIONS

1. TURNING A POSITIVE INTO A NEGATIVE Throughout these past months, we were able to investigate the refugee crisis from several different perspectives. These experiences have helped shape our ideas for potential solutions to contribute to a positive alleviation of the crisis, specifically on Lesvos. During our site assessment in March, there were two problems in particular which we deemed as pressing, the unmanageable amount of life jackets on the coasts and landfills and the lack of dignified (or at all) seating in the refugee camps. We sought to combine these two observations and managed to develop a single upcycling design which would in turn help begin tackling both problems.

2. LEARNING AND DESIGN PROCESS From the beginning we understood the fundamental importance of our resolution to be as simple as possible, so that it could be accessible to a large demographic of volunteers. Our idea was to create both a design and do it yourself (DIY) instructions which could be easily followed and implemented. The key was also to factor in

the production using limited tools, which is the current working condition on the island.

In order to equip ourselves with a better understanding of life jacket materials and production, we consulted with Kari Lampanen from Finnish life jacket distributor (former producer), Rymaco Oy and Jaana Beidler, Head of Fashion and Collection Design, Professor of Colour and Material Design at Aalto University.

Kari was able to provide the team with excellent and detailed information about the longevity, qualities and other important factors of our materials. Jaana was able to provide insights to design resolutions for reworking the materials and sewing.

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5.1 PROBLEM BASED DESIGN SOLUTIONS

PROBLEM 1

PROBLEM 2

5.2 DIY LIFE JACKET SEAT INSTRUCTIONS

1:

YOU WILL NEED:

2:

3:

C2

A

C1 +

+ or

B

C2

C1

+

2X

or

4:

2X

6:

5: A

C2

B

C2

+

B C1

C

C1

C

B

B A

A

A

5.3 PROCESS + DISTRIBUTION

LIFT DIY INSTRUCTIONS

Excess life jackets currently on Lesvos beaches.

Life jackets are collected from the beaches by cleaning crew volunteers.

Third life possibilities

Lighthouse cleaning volunteers can upcycle life jackets into seats on off days or bad weather days.

Life jacket seats are distributed to Lighthouse Relief camps in mainland Greece.

RISTONA REFUGEE CAMP

IDOMENI POLYKASTRO CAMP

+ Women and Babies’ friendly Space

+ Child Friendly Space + Mother-Baby Centre

KATSIKAS REFUGEE CAMP + Community Space

6.

LIFT 3

Our third LIFT has been vital to us from the beginning. We have used various channels, including blogs, our website and social media to raise awareness about the crisis and our findings. We have also been contacted to tell our story by various news outlets. The crisis has led many of us to feel hopeless and helpless. In response, we also wanted to communicate a message of hope, and how even the smallest effort goes a long way.

Website Exhibition

Gala

Interviews

News Articles

Aalto News

Social Media

THE LIFT PROJECT

6.

RAISING AWARENESS As shown in the previous figure, the various communication channels have served as platforms to tell a story. One of our main goals during the LIFT Project has been to report on the crisis in Europe, on the inspiring initiatives working on Lesvos and on the progress of our project. We have used visual material and storytelling to communicate to our audience. We identified two main approaches in reporting and raising awareness, which were through our own communication channels and other communication channels and media.

OUR OWN COMMUNICATION CHANNELS

Website and blog: The website served as a formal channel for providing information to the stakeholders and readers on the LIFT project. It includes background information on the topic and describes the project concisely. Through the website, the readers are guided to the LIFT blog, which served as a platform for our team to produce content on how the project was developing and progressing.

The 10 blog posts were written before and during the field trip.

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www.liftlesvos.wix.com/home

Facebook: Facebook was our project’s main social media and communication channel since it could reach the largest audience and guide the readers to other communication channels. The content produced on Facebook was mainly short reflections, photos and videos of our experiences, posts on our team’s progress, links to articles about our project and other initiatives as well as news related to the refugee crisis.

During the spring, the LIFT Facebook page got 196 likes and during the last month of the project (May 2016) our posts reached up to 1 600 people.

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www.facebook.com/liftlesvos

6.

RAISING AWARENESS

Instagram: The Instagram account of the LIFT project was launched in the beginning of the field trip in order to have a sharing platform for the visual content such as photos and videos. Instagram enables photo and video sharing in a simple and quick way. It also attracts a different audience, more interested in visual storytelling.

The LIFT Instagram has 22 posts and is followed by 44 people.

Vimeo: With the video material we made during our field trip we created a short video clip, which we published online on the Vimeo platform. The film scenes show the various activities we have conducted on Lesvos, mainly the cleaning of the beaches. The video also shows the beauty of the island, something that the locals specifically asked us to communicate. The video serves the purpose to give followers of our project a more emotional, closer look at our work.

Within the first week after publication, the video has been watched 50 times and was also shown to a larger audience during our final presentation.

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www.instagram.com/liftlesvos

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www. vimeo.com/167641786

6.

RAISING AWARENESS +

Aalto News

Aalto Global Impact

The journalist Tim Bird got interested in our project in February and was eager to write a series of three articles for the Aalto University News. The first article, Students aim to give Lift to Lesvos (8.3.2016), which introduced our project and its future steps, was published before the field trip to Lesvos. The second one, Lessons from Lesvos for Lift Project team (19.4.2016) discussed our team’s experiences and feelings after travelling on the site. The third article will be published in Aalto Magazine in the fall 2016 and will address the outcomes and results of the LIFT project.

The article The volunteers turning refugee life jackets into symbols of hope (6.5.2016) written by journalist Mark Wilding addresses the ecological crisis on Lesvos. The Lift Project was mentioned among other upcycling projects as an initiative seeking solutions for the environmental challenges on the island.

Along with comments from our team member Eve, the article discussed the aim and goals of our project. The journalist contacted our team via the LIFT Facebook page to agree on a phone interview that was conducted in April.

During the Aalto Festival in May 2016, we had the chance to showcase objects and items found on the shores of Lesvos along with an informative poster of the project in exhibition spaces in Laituri and Kiasma.

The exhibited items were a baby swim vest, a broken phone, an Iraqi passport and life jacket parts. The exhibition’s purpose was to raise awareness of the current facts of the crisis, such as the amount of displaced children due to war, conflict and poverty, the dangers during the sea crossings and the means of communication between the people of concern. The exhibition texts can be found in the annex of the report.

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Students aim to give Lift to Lesvos (8.3.2016) www. aalto.fi/en/current/news/2016-03-08-002 Lessons from Lesvos for Lift Project team (19.4.2016) www.aalto.fi/en/current/news/2016-04-19-004

The volunteers turning refugee life jackets into symbols of hope(6.5.2016) www.theguardian.com/ global-development-professionals-network/2016/ may/06/the-volunteers-turning-refugee-lifejackets-intosymbols-of-hope

7. CONCLUSION

In the past five months, our minds were constantly evolving around our project in one way or another. We have been following the news with utmost attention, we have met with many different people showing us their view on the situation, and we have been engaged in in-depth discussions about society, politics, and cultural identities. And even though our school semester might have come to an end, conflicts still continue forcing people to leave their homes all over the world.

One can still find people who welcome strangers into their homes, and people who continue to fear the unknown.

We are well aware that our LIFT project is a small piece in the enormous system of crisis relief efforts. As a team, we tried to tell the inspiring stories of different people and organizations that are involved in the current EU migration crisis. Throughout our project, we strived to communicate a message of hope to counteract the feeling of hopelessness and helplessness many of us experienced. We hope that our work is an example of how even the smallest effort goes a long way.

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The LIFT project team: Eve, Oona, Melanie

7.1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Along the way, there have been several key contributors who have helped our project and were essential to our overall success. Without their expertise, advice and/or support, our project could not have been the same nor could it have reached its fullest potential. We would like to cordially thank all of the following contributors, with a special thanks to everyone we met along the way in Finland and Greece:

NGOs + LOCALS:

ACADEMIC:

Henry Hartley + Lighthouse Relief Alison Terry-Evans + Dirty Girls of Lesvos Island Father Christophoros Schuff Stelios (Petra Local) Theo (Petra Local) Erato (Skala Sikaminias Local) Nikolai (Moria Police Officer) Irene Psifidi (Odyssea) I AM YOU. - Swedish Volunteers Danish Refugee Council

Kristjana Aðalgeirsdóttir - Tutoring Professor Jaana Beidler, Associate Professor at Aalto University Sustainable Global Technologies at Aalto University Roope Kiviranta - Aalto Global Impact Faisal Al-Barazi

SPONSORS

Architecture Workshop Finland Oy

Helsingin kauppatieteiden ylioppilaiden säätiö

ANNEX

ANNEX CONTENTS

1

Lesvos Island in further detail

2 NGOS 3

Project beneficiaries

4

Project sustainability

5 Interviews

Alison Terry-Evans, Dirty Girls of Lesvos Island

Christophoros Schuff, Orthodox Priest and UNHCR Camp Coordinator 6

Exhibition Texts

A.1 LESVOS - GREECE Capital Area Population Area

Mytilene 86,436 1,636 km2

With its 320 km of coastline, Lesvos is the third largest Greek island after Crete and Evia. It is located in the North Aegean region, only a few miles away from the west coast of Turkey. The island is connected to the mainland and other islands by ship and by air through Lesvos international airport and through its port, which are both located close to the capital city Mytilene in the south east of the island.

The city of Mytilene is the island’s capital as well as the capital of the prefecture of Lesvos. The entire island is sometimes referred to as Mytilene. About half of the island’s population lives in its administrative center. The city is built on the ruins of an ancient city on top of small hills.

Lesvos’ mild Mediterranean climate creates optimal conditions for olive groves, which cover almost half of the island’s area.

Therefore, olive oil is the main source of income for the inhabitants. Lesvos is also claimed to be the center of ouzo produc-

tion, the traditional Greek anise flavored aperitif. Many distilleries are scattered around the island.

Next to the production of olive oil and ouzo, tourism contributes substantially to the local economy. Rather than international hotel chains, small and mid sized hotels dominate the accommodation market.

There is also vast supporting infrastructure, consisting of transportation companies, tour operators, restaurants and museums.

Most tourists come during the summer months.

Besides the island’s beaches, one of the major tourist attractions on Lesvos is the Petrified Forest, which has been fossilized 20 million years ago due to volcanic activity. Because of its uniqueness and excellent state of preservation, the forest became member of the Global Geo parks Network of UNESCO. --

LESVOS

Ath e n s

A.2 NGOS - IN DETAIL

Lighthouse Relief is a Swedish NGO that provides emergency relief to refugees arriving to Lesvos and to camps in mainland Greece. Lighthouse Relief’s mission is to give support and provide safety to the most vulnerable groups such as children and women.

In addition, improving the conditions of both the local actors and the refugees is in the core of their activities.

Lighthouse Relief is a Swedish NGO that provides emergency relief to refugees arriving to Lesvos and to camps in mainland Greece. Lighthouse Relief’s mission is to support the most vulnerable groups such as children and women. Improving the conditions of both locals and refugees is at the core of their activities. Lighthouse Relief started operating in Lesvos in September 2015 at the height of the refugee crisis. At a time when none of the bigger NGOs was active on Lesvos yet, a group of volunteers decided to start their own initiative. Currently Lighthouse Relief helps the refugees stranded in Katsikas and Ritsona camp on the Greek mainland and the few people that still arrive to Lesvos. On the island, the NGO supports the ecosystem through its ECO RELIEF clean-up project.

Lighthouse Relief collaborates closely with local villagers and fishermen of Skala Sikaminias.

-www.lighthouserelief.org info@lighthouse.org

MAIN OPERATIONS: KATSIKAS REFUGEE CAMP, MAINLAND GREECE:

Community spaces

Children’s and women’s spaces

Camp coordination

Construction, cleaning, distribution and translation RITSONA REFUGEE CAMP; MAINLAND GREECE:

Camp coordination

Women-baby safe place

Child friendly space with activities

Communal areas

Making accessibility for the disabled

RECEPTION AND WATCH OPERATIONS, LESVOS:

Providing shelter in the reception camp in Skala Sikaminias

24/7 watch operation in Korakas ECO RELIEF - ENVIRONMENTAL CLEAN-UP OPERATION, LESVOS:

Supporting the local environment with clean-up

Finding solutions for the environmental problems KARA TEPE, LESVOS: Psycho-social support activities for camp residents

A.2 NGOS - IN DETAIL

The Dirty Girls of Lesvos Island washes dirty clothes left on the shores in order to be distributed to the refugees in the camps.

Alison Terry-Evans, the founder of the initiative, noticed a problem: when people arrive on the boats, they are given dry new-clothes and the old ones are thrown away, which adds to the environmental problems of landfill on Lesvos. Now Dirty Girls collects the clothes, washes them at a commercial laundry and distribute them so that they can be reused. The initiative has been able to recycle thousands of items of clothing.

-www.facebook.com/dirtygirlslesvos Related Article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/refugees-clean-laundry-lesbos_us_56785f43e4b014efe0d65292

A.3 PROJECT BENFICIARIES

Lesvos Locals & Environment and the Public Opinion in Europe are our projects main direct beneficiaries. The Lesvos locals have been gallant during this time of crisis, and in turn we want to prioritize their well-being and space as well. With our project we hope to make a positive impact on the environment of Lesvos by volunteering in cleaning up the island and researching ways to upcycle life jackets. By documenting existing initiatives and the immense work done by inhabitants and volunteers on Lesvos, we want to inspire people and show that bottom-up change is possible.

DIRECT Local Businesses

NGOs

Media

+ Lesvos Locals & Environment + Public opinion in Europe

The indirect beneficiaries of our project are the refugees and asylum seekers arriving to Europe. Our project aims to positively affect the perceptions of Europeans towards refugees by shedding light on their situation.

Camps & Shelters

We will also need some help along the way, with local ngos and initiatives, stationed volunteers, media, private donors and local administration among others.

+ Refugee / Asylum Seekers

Tourists Also affected: Aalto University Finnish Refugee Initiatives North Aegan Islands, Greece

Volunteers

INDIRECT

Private Donors

A.4 PROJECT SUSTAINABILITY

To ensure the success and positive effect of our project, we have made an analysis of all sustainability aspects of our inititative.

TECHNOLOGICAL SUSTAINABILITY

INSTITUTIONAL SUSTAINABILITY

Finding the right NGO to become involved with.

Being part of a larger scale organization can help the project thrive.

Simple implementation and assembly methods make the project easily accessible and understandable to all.

SOCIO-CULTURAL SUSTAINABILITY

The project aims to document existing initiatives focused on upcycling life jackets and make an impact for positive reaction in Europe.

OUR PROJECT

FINANCIAL SUSTAINABILITY

Upcycling is key not only for the environment but in terms of costs, since found materials are often free.

ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY

The project’s primary objective of documenting upcycling initiatives and projecting third- lives for the materials (Life jackets) used would help alleviate the environmental burden in Lesvos today.

A.5 INTERVIEWS : ALISON TERRY-EVANS - DIRTY GIRLS FOUNDER

I think you have been asked this so many times, but how did ‘Dirty Girls’ start?

“The washing of the clothes started simply because I saw the clothes being thrown away, and to me, this was disrespectful on many levels. It was disrespectful for the people arriving, and disrespectful for the people of this island. Basically that’s it.

And it’s just a plain bloody waste of good clothes.”

Were you here on vacation?

“No I spent some summers on the other side of the island, so I came here. You know in the summer, when people couldn’t catch buses - there were no busses, they had to walk - I would come over with a car full of water, healthy food and so on, and hand it out. And so it was about the water, it was about the food, but it was (really) about saying ’We’re sorry’.”

And you started it by yourself I believe, or how did you...

“Basically, I just - I knew that I needed a

commercial laundry, because I could already see the scope of it. And I approached a couple of commercial laundries, who made it very clear that they would not have refugee clothes in their machines. So in the meantime I was taking them and washing them in my machine and few other peoples’ machines that were going like 20 hours a day. And then eventually I found Peter and his laundry and he was supportive, and that’s where we have been washing ever since.”

government. The government who runs Moria, because they wanna trash them.

They are trashing clothes. So it’s a constant, constant battle. It should be really easy and straightforward. I have the systems setup, they work. But then someone comes along and says ‘No, we’re trashing them’ - and that wipes it down again.” on the islands.” The withdrawal of aid organizations has created a vacuum in the camp, with inmates lacking most basic needs.

Ok. And at the beginning did you have volunteers from the locals?

But why do you think are they still trying to trash the clothes, although you have a successful process?

“I had volunteers that were actually friends.

At the beginning I had to rip clothes out of the hands of volunteers, because they had been instructed to trash them. With whatever organization they were with, they just said ‘Just throw those clothes away’ and they were doing it. And I had the dumps to dive. I mean it was a struggle, and it still is sometimes, because there is still some NGO’s who come into the site saying ‘oh it’s easier to just thrash them’. I’m constantly battling. Right now I’m battling with the

“I don’t know… I don’t know the answer to that one. I know that one day there was a ministerial visit, and that was the day that the Dirty Girls’ bins got hidden away and the clothes were trashed very quickly, so a quick clean up, and it continued from there.”

When you were being interviewed by one of the several newspapers or other media outlets, was there anything that annoyed you, for example in how journalists

[continued] behave or the media behave towards your initiative?

“No, no, I think the media has been really supportive, really supportive, and I rely on the media. I mean it’s called ‘Dirty Girls’ for completely marketing reasons, because I knew from the beginning that I was gonna need a lot of money. And, it also, it’s given me entre to a lot of people in a funny sort of a way. You know NGO’s… Because Dirty Girls is supported by private donors, but it’s also funded by NGO’s. And I couldn’t do it without them.”

So they actually had a very positive effect on it?

“Always, yeah. I mean there were a couple of NGO’s who were not positive, and who were in fact obstructive, but other ones are very, very positive. And helpful. I mean if you think that with the blankets we have saved UNHCR hundreds of thousands of Euros.”

I was amazed when you said that.

When we saw the UNHCR blankets I was thinking ‘ok, so are you benefiting

from that in some way? Because in a way it will help you actually, of course, in supporting you financially. But they don’t?

“They don’t support us financially and I think that’s something… The person who is the representative on this island has certainly been helpful in that is directed people who can come in my way. And I think it’s a conversation that needs to be taken up again.”

So you have the volunteers working, and you have as well locals working?

“Ok there’s twelve people who I employ, and those twelve people wouldn’t have a job at this time of the year. So that’s a good domino effect.”

is a very...economically this municipality is struggling. So if they don’t have to pick up 50 tonnes of garbage, it’s not a strain on their truck, it’s not the petrol consumed.

And it would be certainly a lot of work at the landfill to try and dispose it, that 50 tonnes.

So to add that to the employment. And then of course you have got the benefits for the people who are coming, being able to have clothes. So it’s a very simple thing.

You take clothes, and you recycle them. It’s very simple, and it’s not a big deal - but it sometimes actually is a big deal.”

So obviously you have some issues with the government?

“For whatever reason, they wanna trash the clothes.”

And they are being paid by the laundry?

And did you face any troubles or problems with the locals?

“There’s a lot of (unclear). So there’s that, and there’s the fact that the garbage men, they don’t have to pick up - we have saved them from picking up 50 tonnes of garbage.

So they haven’t had to do that. I mean this

“Oh, they have been very, very supportive. I mean, they were happy. I mean if you think about what this village looked like: every morning there were clothes everywhere. All over the village, all over the beaches. They

are very happy. They were distressed about the clothes being thrown out, they hated it.”

I think you have heard about what’s happening now in Turkey, with that agreement with the EU. Starting this Sunday actually, anyone coming to Greece though smuggling basically would be sent back to Turkey. So first of all what do you think of that?

“That is completely an ugly distress. Turkey is not a safe country, you can proof it’s not a safe country. And Europe is just, it has just turned it’s back on people. It’s terrible… You see now I’m in distress. I mean we know these people! I mean maybe I don’t know the ones from last night or the ones that are coming, but it’s all the same people. It’s distressing. It’s like they were our friends now. And they are being mistreated, that’s not ok.”

What the EU is saying is that they are actually helping the people in a way.

They want to stop the smuggling from happening, and the people from dying in the sea.

“They could have done that. All they gotta do is to lift people out of it. We don’t want people trapped in a country. They need to be brought to Europe in airplanes. I don’t care if they bring people in a train or a bus, not over water.”

‘No, it’s not safe!’. That’s terrible.”

I think that the registration is gonna be processed in Turkey, so that they would actually start bringing people in a safer way to Europe.

“It has always been like that, always.”

“If that’s true, then that’s good. But why do I not believe it? (laughter) It’s just terrible. And then you know these five new camps being build in Greece, and they were planned weeks ago.”

When we volunteered inside Moria camp, there were a lot of people from Afghanistan, and Afghanistan is considered a safe country… “(laughter) Yeah right. I have spoken to enough people from Afghanistan, who obviously speak English, to know it is not a safe country. I mean I can read the news, but I have spoken to them. And they are saying

But then for example the Syrians: they are not staying long, because they are given priority. While the Afghans are staying there in a way.

So I don’t really know what would happen in that case, because I mean if you think of it, the way I see it is if people have a problem, and they are travelling all this distance, and they are risking their lives…

“You know that they are running from something!”

They should be running from something.

And then they are stuck in the camps and then they don’t know if they will be send back to their countries.

“And all the Pakistani people. They are being tricked about it. You know I heard… I was in this meeting with NGO’s the other week, two and a half weeks ago, and they were telling

me that the night before, 500 Pakistanis have been told they wanted to isolate them, because there was scabies. So they put them in a tent to isolate them. But it was just a trick. Then the police came in and arrested them. They were deported. I don’t know what deported means, presumably they were sent back to Turkey, I don’t know.”

But there’s always a discussion that Europe cannot take everyone in.

“Why not? Why not? There’s 500 million people here, another four million is not going to make much of a difference. I’m not buying that.”

Even if someone is… you know some people instead of using the words refugee or someone seeking asylum they use the word immigration or immigrants, just to refer to economic immigrants, people who are coming for economical reasons purely.

“You know what, it’s probably not much fun to live in inadequate shelter, with inadequate food. That’s a good enough reason.”

So probably with this new agreement less people would be trying to cross to Greece, and hopefully that would make people safer and hopefully… let’s hope that Europe would actually provide a safe passage, maybe. And that might be affecting what Dirty Girls are doing at the moment, because there’s not the same amount of clothes.

“We are going to Idomeni next week. To see what we can do up there. It sounds dire.

And so I’m just waiting for someone who is effectively a colleague, she has been here before and we worked together. She is arriving on Tuesday. We will see. We set up some systems (unclear). Anyway, we’ll see what we can best do.”

And let’s hope that the crisis of people being displaced…

“That’s the root of it.”

Yeah, of course. Let’s hope that in Syria for example, the international community will reach a solution, and people are living happily there. And the

locals here obviously are affected by the displaced people coming. Tourism has been affected a lot. A lot of the locals are saying that they themselves might be refugees next year. What do you think of that?

“There’s no doubt that a lot of people were very badly affected. The people of Mytillini, some stand up and say they’ve prospered from it, because they have. So there’s a whole group of people who have prospered.

Other people have suffered. They say ‘I haven’t been able to run tourism’. This will be a really bad year, but it’ll recover after that. But it’s real. And given the way the Greek government taxes, that makes it even more difficult.”

You are a creative person I would say. Do you see yourself doing other things, let’s say for the locals. Well, you are already doing something. You are employing the locals. Would you see yourself expanding your contribution?

“We do different things. We help people. For example a team of Dirty Girls would come

in and do for example a bit of gardening. Or we got some washing powder donated. So we took three kilos of washing powder to every household. It’s just a little thing, but it’s to say: ‘Thanks!’. Because they have done so much. So whenever we can find an opportunity for Dirty Girls, we’ll do it.”

You are obviously in a very good relationship with the locals, and everyone loves you!

And how can they help your efforts particularly?

“They can volunteer, but then it’s always money, isn’t it? But well, I always feel at least they are getting something very tangible.

It’’s immediate when people donate to Dirty Girls. And as I said it has a domino effect.

Because we employ people, and invest it.”

“Oh… You know if you knew some of those stories, of what these people did before volunteers came along, it’s just horrendous.

Horrendous.”

As this is part of university work, we are writing a blog and spreading the word about what is happening. Is there a certain message that you want to convey to the people who would be reading our blog?

How do you think people can help? Not from the island, but people all over the world.

“I think it’s really important that people know: This situation would be very different if people ...

“They can bloody stand up and say ‘This is not alright. Open the borders’. People have to stand up and say that. Write to their representatives, get out on the streets, do whatever it takes. Instead of just sitting on their hands.”

(unclear) If they didn’t exist it would be very different. People would be dying, they would be dying. I mean that boat that came in on the 17th of March, those hundred people would all be dead now.

Because our governments are doing nothing. And that’s the most shocking part of the whole thing.” (unclear) “Shall we go back to our shoes now?”

Yes. Thank you very much for this interview.

“Thanks, I loved this.”

-Interview participant: Alison Terry-Evans Interviewed by: Faisal Al Barazi, on 19.03.2016 Transcribed by: Melanie Wolowiec, on 26.05.2016

A.5 INTERVIEWS : FATHER CHRISTOPHOROS SCHUFF - ORTHODOX PRIEST

We have been reading your website and what we found interesting was that you wrote there that you are not willing to promote the donors with photos. We have been having a lot of discussion about the ethics of reporting and photographing this crisis. How to keep the balance, on the one hand with the donors and on the other hand you want to promote and tell the people about you are doing. There is a fine line between what is right and what is not.

“Well, it is kind of a personal choice I have made because I have not published a single picture of me together with a refugee. I refuse to do it, I have even sent tens of thousands of euros back to organizations because I’ve refused to take pictures and share their logo. I rather look at us like people helping people, Christians, Muslims, we are the same. The only pictures I have allowed to take is if its refugees, if they want to take a picture with me, I allow them. But I’ve never published a single picture.”

But there has obviously been people asking you to take pictures with their

logos and everything right?

“Yes. But that is why I wrote it on my website. If you want to donate, that’s good.”

We actually thought it was so good that you wrote that in your website. And also the reminder for volunteers that they are welcome to volunteer but they have to be able to get their hands dirty and do hard work. I guess people come here to volunteer or donate for different reasons, not always maybe just to help.

How can you raise awareness in the most ethical way? For example for us, we are doing this project which is a lot about raising awareness because people don’t know what is happening and they have the media as their only source.

“Social media and the media has its place in this. I would give speeches, I would talk about it, and talk to people. I think there is something that happens when you look in people’s eyes when you’re talking and you tell stories. If I write anything on facebook, I write some reflections, very brief reflections from an ethical point, encouraging people

to help but I never ask for donations on my Facebook or promote anything whatsoever.

It’s just there, it exists, so people can see it if they want to. But I think telling stories. Because something happens when somebody is telling a story or telling an experience. Everybody has seen the pictures so our brains get tired of the pictures I think.

We have seen thousands of these pictures.”

That’s what we were also discussing.

That it’s easy to scroll through and you don’t really process.

“Yeah exactly, you’re like “oh that’s sad” and “next thing, next thing”. So it’s why it has been my approach many years. Tell stories, talk to people and that’s what I encourage people to do when they are helping refugees in settling. It’s not always about programmes, but being a human being for another human being in need. That’s what it is. And sometimes I’ve seen the nonprogrammes being a lot more effective. Be a friend, invite them for tea, relate to them.

This is a relation issue not a programme issue”

I agree and I think it is very important remember that and sometimes I feel like the media is full of photos and it’s treating the refugees just as a mass of people. When we were cleaning up the beaches, just realizing that every jacket that you lift up is one person and then another person. It gets very deep realizing that there is a person connected to each piece.

Actually we have an exhibition related to this project, but we don’t know yet what we will actually exhibit. We have collected these objects from the beaches, for example birth certificates. And we don’t know yet how and if we are even going to exhibit them but we were thinking that you could maybe give us some advise about how we should do it. Or is it something we should even do?

because it’s a symbol.

“I make art. I will show you some and how I have done it. Let me just find the photos so you will understand. I’ve taken pictures of lifejackets, of child life jackets. And say a child cross the sea or something.”

So you tell the story through these symbols and metaphors. And also the connection with these icons.

It is actually much more powerful,

“Yeah, it’s symbolic. This is one of my art pieces. I see each human being as God and if we say we worship God, we will also help these people. The other one I just made is with this large cross. This is in an exhibition in Oslo now. This is a crucified child and normally in the Greek Orthodox Church on the top of the sign it says “The King of Glory” and I’ve changed that in Byzantine writing and now it says “The King of the Foreigner” in the top and then this crucified child. And with a handcuff, because I was travelling in Europe through the Balkans and people were being arrested, the police was just pulling them of the train and not even asking passports just because they looked foreigners. So that’s the way I’ve done it because it’s symbolic.”

“Yes, I use a lot of Icons. And I’ve taken other things, one part of the exhibition is something called “Crucified”. I take the face

of Christ and I superpose it as an icon of Christ and its a gypsy beggar crucified with a knife through their heart which says “Fear” and an arrow that says “Ignorance”. Another one is with Osama Bin Laden painted as Christ and it says “Love Your Enemies”. It’s symbolic. Even if we hate them they are god to us. Anyway those are just examples of what I’ve done with that. Another thing I’ve done, is that I took a bunch of passports and pictures that were left behind, some of we know the names some we don’t. For example those passports that are thrown away because they want to be Syrian. So when I’ve done a speech, I’ll have a table where people can look through the IDs and I say that these are individual human beings.

Actually the only picture of a refugee I put up for about half an hour and after that I took it down it was a woman that died here.

It was a picture of her, not the woman dead, it was a picture of just her passport. I was doing CPR on her and she ended up dying.

And then instead I switched that out with her cardiograph and I have that cardiograph.

When she was dead, they did a cardiograph and there’s three straight lines when somebody is dead. So what I posted was

just these three lines and that’s going to be part of another exhibition.. This is actually somebody who died. All you see is this piece of paper with three lines. But it was a human being. It’s using the power of symbolism.

Anyway, that’s what I’ve done.”

Interesting. If we would have an exhibition about the items, do you think it would be ethical to put up some IDs or photos? At least the names should probably be hidden.

“What I’ve done with the first name is that I took it down, I couldn’t do it. It was too powerful, like, this woman just died. I think I wrote “My name is Putina…” I didn’t say the woman died but… Kinda like that. Maybe you could scan them and take out the passport photos, or photos of little children or families. You know you may not know whether they are dead or alive so ….”

Do you see this kind of symbolism in these icons. Because you are using the icons so much, what do they mean for you?

“It’s a way of speaking to the Christian world, because a lot of people that are against refugees in Europe are saying that they are defending Christianity, Christian europe, it’s bullshit. Because if you know what Christianity is, Christianity is supposed to be love. The last piece I came up, I woke up in the middle of the night and just wrote something in Greek. And it’s gonna be a piece of art afterwards. It is only going to be written in Greek because there is something powerful about it. I believe one of the problems is we have a very patriarchal God, very man dominated, and that’s an issue.

I have a problem with that. What I wrote is : “Love is our Goddess, and God is our Fellow Man.” Because in Greek the word love is a feminine word. And immediately somebody writes and asks what “love our goddess?”. That is making a statement about the qualities of God as something more than what the box we put it in. And our fellow man is God. So again symbolic power, using words. I think that if I would ever make a piece with that cardiograph, it would just say “My name is Putina” and I’ll have the cardiograph without any explanations.”

Well, that is probably the most powerful way to leave it open. That is also what we have discussing a lot. There is a story you want to tell, but such fine lines between what is ethical and what is not.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts on these. Maybe we could move on to the environmental aspect. We went to this life jacket graveyard, and it just left us speechless. Right now there is no recycling facilities or any waste management on the island. How do you see the future of the crisis waste management here?

“The truth is that I’ve been on this island for a long time. We actually tried about 10 years ago to find funding for the island to have recycling facility and again it just never worked. It’s about money. And it’s about will.

Greeks themselves are not very used to recycle like we do in Scandinavia. So they have these blue bins that say recycling but people just throw whatever in there. It has to do with a learning curve, how long it will take for that stuff to be used. So it has to do a lot with first of all the funding, to actually be able to recycle all this in some way.The other

thing relates to the mentality. Especially on this island compared to mainland, where they have more facilities. So the question is about whether the recycling should be made here. You’d have to tear apart all the life jackets, the cloth there and the foam there and the plastic buckles and then recycle them in some way to make new plastic or whatever. That’s a question of money.”

Do you know if the local government has any plans for this?

“This is the problem. Greece doesn’t have money, it has been in economic crisis. These kinds of things would need funding from the EU.” Also here when we came, although we did as much background research as possible, you get a total different picture by talking with people and seeing the island. We saw this waste also connected to so many different things, first of all to this symbolism. Every piece of trash has its own story connected but then on the other hand there is also this tourism industry. It’s like most of the people here

live of it. And then this long term thing, what will happen when all the media attention goes away and the people will still live here with the trash left behind.

“One thing I am worried about is the amount of diesel, oil and gas in the sea because of these boats. And you have to think of the fish life here. There has been Greenpeace here but instead of focusing on the environmental things they ended up doing boat rescuing.

There has been talks of doing a big environmental project but it hasn’t happened other than cleaning up and putting all the trash in one pile.”

Do you think that NGOs want to focus more on this human aspect in here and not so much in the environmental aspect?

“I think that’s very much the case. I mean the people are the first priority and then you have the long term effects of the environmental damages and the possibilities of recycling the boats and the life jackets. I have tried to tell people that one of the things we’re gonna be doing here as volunteers

is picking up trash. There’s of course the environmental aspect but also that the trash other than the life jackets and boats have actually been created by the NGOs. For example when they buy 10 000 packaged croissants there, is 10 000 pieces of trash.

Or when you buy hundreds of thousands of water bottles and emergency blankets, you have created trash. So the NGOs have created a lot of the trash problem. So this is something they should take responsibility for. So many people have done waste pick up, the locals do it, Lighthouse does it, I do it. But there’s a lot of groups that don’t even think about it. They come here and leave their trash.”

What do they say if you talk to them? Do they see the problem?

“Usually it’s more like the practical “Hey, could you guys help picking up some trash?”. Then it’s a very pragmatic thing, and some would help you for a little while, a few hours. But then it’s much bigger than that. On one day they might have done one thing which is good but there is of course the fallback of the rest of the story. The question

of the longer term of this.”

One last question. What can the NGOs do to show their respect to the local communities other than cleaning up the environment?

“Now when the situation is changing, we don’t know if refugees are just gonna stop coming because of the patrols or because of the new agreement which happened yesterday. That’s what we are all thinking about. One thing that we have encouraged people to do is think of the local economy, buy locally, support the local. That’s one thing i had a problem with when there were NGOs who wanted to give me money and saying “ok you have to negotiate to get the lowest price from some distributor in Athens” and I am like “I don’t do that, I am sorry.”

I, as a person, don’t negotiate money. I think it’s almost like a type of Karma. Even if you pay a little more, you are helping the economy here. So the economy and the trash pick up. Another thing is respect for the locals. Some people have all this prejudice about the Greek people, they are not helping, they don’t like us. And then we

come back to relationships. You are a guest here and you are living in another local environment. It has to do with the mentality and in the way acting as people. There are the practical thing like the local economy and the trash pick up and then there is to getting to know the people, the local culture.”

And if you disagree, talk to each other about it. Often just sitting down over a cup of coffee can be that solution.”

I feel that especially here it’s so easy to just go to people and just start off a conversation. It has also been very useful to get to know the local culture. We have learned so much by just talking with people, by being open-minded and by listening.

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“This is a great community. They have been helping refugees for many many years, for several decades. The only difference is that they no longer had the capacity because of the numbers coming. But they have been helping so much. Many times I have been the middleman between volunteers and locals since I speak Greek. Often I get complains from volunteers or I get complains from the locals or just a positive feedback from both and then kind of communicating that. It’s important because we are guests.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I think you gave a very powerful lesson to all of us.

Interview participant: Father Christoforos Interviewed by: Melanie Wolowiec and Oona Anttila, on

19.03.2016 Transcribed by: Oona Anttila, on 26.05.2016

A.6 EXHIBITION TEXTS

1. BABY SWIM VEST

to assist refugees in finding safe passages, staying updated on policy changes, translation, and most importantly staying connected with loved ones. Oftentimes the very first thing people will do upon arriving to Greek shores is to call friends and family to let them know they are safe.

As of 2016, the demographics of refugees arriving by boat to Greece have shifted, revealing the changing face of the migration crisis. Out of all the registered arrivals since February, children make up 40%.

There have also been many documented cases of children getting separated or even lost during their journey- making them a particularly vulnerable group. Children are especially sensitive to the traumatizing effects of war in their home countries, as well as the long and arduous journey to Europe. The lack of education, toys and even crucial psychological support in the camps throughout Greece makes the current situation very dire.

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2016/1/18/forasylum-seekers-a-cell-phone-is-a-bridge-to-the-futureand-the-past.html

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3. PASSPORT CASE

http://data.unhcr.org/mediterranean/country.php?id=83

2. CELLPHONE The European refugee crisis is the first of its magnitude in a fully digital age.

Unsurprisingly, phones, especially smartphones, are often the most crucial item for refugees during their journey. Phones and access to wifi have been documented

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http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/ surprised-that-syrian-refugees-have-smartphones-wellsorry-to-break-this-to-you-but-youre-an-idiot-10489719. html http://time.com/4062120/see-how-smartphones-havebecome-a-lifeline-for-refugees/

Although the distance between the Greek island of Lesvos and the Turkish coast can be as little as 10 km, the overloaded boats can take hours to make the crossing.

The risk for refugees of losing their only possessions along the way is high. The boats, built for 10 people are notoriously packed with over 4 times their capacity by smugglers, often forcing passengers to throw bags into the water to prevent from

sinking once mid-sea. There have even been reports of pirates who steal the refugees’ sparse belongings and chuck their passports and cell phones into the sea.

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/greek-migrantboats-attacked_us_55cbabf1e4b0898c488664e6

4. LIFEJACKET ITEMS (BUCKLES, WHISTLE, FOAM) People are fleeing their homes to stay alive, but all too often the rough waters of the sea prevents them from reaching safety. In order to increase their chances of survival, most refugees purchase life jackets before boarding the unseaworthy rubber boats in Turkey.

But the crisis has given way to a counterfeit market and many of the life jackets are not life saving at all.

Some can be filled with materials that soak up water rather than float, putting people at even greater risk of drowning. In 2016 alone, 1 261 people have been reported dead or missing on the main routes through the Mediterranean.

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http://data.unhcr.org/mediterranean/regional.php http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ refugee-crisis-turkish-police-find-factory-making-fakelife-jackets-for-refugees-a6800661.html http://www.ekathimerini.com/205666/gallery/ ekathimerini/special-report/fake-life-vests-soak-upchances-of-survival-for-shipwrecked-refugeeS