‘We're all the same people’

A Cork volunteer returned home recently after a “life changing” week spent working with refugees on a Greek island.

Health and wellness specialist, Niall O’Callaghan, travelled to the Greek island of Lesvos earlier this month to volunteer with refugee support group, Home for All.

Thousands of people fleeing their homes have come to Lesvos in recent years in an attempt to gain entry to Europe, but due to an agreement made between the EU and Turkey in 2016, the refugees have not been allowed to leave the island.

Camp Moria, a disused military barracks outside the island’s capital Mytilene, now houses close to 13,000 people and is more than four times over capacity.

Niall, a wellness advocate for essential oil company doTERRA, told the Cork Independent that he had always wanted to volunteer and that he was delighted to have had the opportunity.

“It gives great perspective on the life that we have here. Things that I would have taken for granted before, like having a home and comfortable surroundings, but even something like having an Irish passport, I can move around freely. These people don't have these things,” said the Ballincollig native.

He added: “What I realised very quickly was that, what seemed like a different world, is not a different world. It's my world and it's our world. We're all the same people.”

While there, Niall worked with Home for All to prepare hundreds of meals a day for the people in the camp, as well as providing clothes, sleeping bags and other essentials such as toothpaste and toothbrushes.

As part of its free support for refugees, Home for All established a charity kitchen where groups and families are taken every day to sit down and enjoy a hot, home cooked meal in peaceful surroundings.

Niall said: “They were all so grateful to us. Just to be able to sit down and eat is a treasure for them. A lot of the new arrivals aren't even staying in Camp Moria now, but in the overflow area, which is an olive grove on either side of the camp.

“They'll get a tent after a while, but they have to sleep out in the open for the first couple of nights. And temperatures are dropping now.”

Despite the poor conditions and growing tension in the camp, Niall said that the people were friendly and maintained a positive outlook.

“Some are real refugees who have been displaced by conflict. Then there are others who are just looking for a better life. The positivity that these people have is amazing. In the camp you'd have small kids running up to you shouting 'hello' and hugging your leg. I was expecting to see a lot of doom and gloom, but these people have a good outlook. They have hope.”

Niall, who says he would love to go back and volunteer again, highlighted the uncertainty faced by the people in Camp Moria as a cause for the growing unrest.

“They have no certainty whatsoever, and it's very volatile because of that. A lot of them want to work. They want a purpose in life. They want to earn money and work for it and then use it. That's the normal economy that we take for granted,” he concluded.