Updates from international team of volunteers sent by Positive Action in Housing to save refugee lives. 200 volunteers from all over the world went to Lesvos in 2015. LESVOS REFUGEE CRISIS APPEAL
Updated February 2021
In 2015/16, Positive Action in Housing worked closely with The Kempson family over the humanitarian crisis in Lesvos. Our aim was simple - to save refugee lives in Europe. We raised over £50,000 of aid for Lesvos which is at the frontline of the biggest refugee crisis Europe has faced since world War 2. Our charity (SC027577) is shocked at a growing dossier of evidence that shows that the international aid agencies are collecting massive amounts of aid yet doing very little to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Lesvos, leaving it to volunteers and tiny NGOs like Drop in the Ocean, WAHA and our charity to help those in need. This website will encourage volunteers, donations and put pressure on aid agencies to act. The narrow Mytilini strait separates Turkey from the Greek island by just six miles and more than 93,000 people have landed on its shores so far this year, making it the country’s busiest point for refugee arrivals. He works with wife Philippa, an artist, and daughter Elleni, to helps bring refugees to safety, giving them food, water and medical help and attending to miscarriages and newborns. Eric says aid agencies are failing the thousands who land on the beach near his home and issued an urgent appeal for international help. Speaking in Glasgow on November 4 2015, Eric Kempson recounted the tragedy unfolding on his doorstep, saying: “I am here to let the world know what’s going on in the island of Lesvos. A lot more needs to be done. Last Wednesday, we had a wooden boat with 250 people on it collapse out at sea. In 60 seconds it went under. We had four groups of doctors surrounding four babies, working on them. Out of the four groups, one cheer went up – one made it. There were bodies everywhere. On Friday, 28 bodies washed up. We are getting hardly any help from the aid agencies, hardly any help from European governments.”
Criticising international charities and authorities, he added:
“European governments are making it worse. They sink the boats and put them back where they left from. One family came in a week ago and said they had been put back three times. They had been sunk in the water. The Turkish coastguard is sinking the boats, picking the people up and putting survivors back on the beach.
“I am critical of aid agencies – I have lived with them for nine months and this has changed my views. They come in and take photographs, nothing comes back in. They can get away with it in Africa and Bangladesh but they’re in Europe now and the spotlight is on them. The camps are disgraceful. There’s sewage running between the camps. Europe is meant to be civilised. I can’t step back as long as it is going on. I’ll be there until it’s past.”
WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP NOW
Donate to:
The Hope Project at Lesvos via JustGiving
Moria White Helmets (via Stand By Me Lesvos)
Aegean Boat Report
Don’t donate to big aid agencies who are barely visible. Donate to Positive Action in Housing: www.positiveactionh.org
