Author: wearehere

Since our last update, a lot of change has happened in Nea Kavala.

A few weeks ago, we heard that there were going to be many new arrivals brought to the camp from the overcrowded arrival islands. That they wouldn’t be put in containers but instead tents. Watching these individual tents, like those of 2016, go up in preparation was surreal. We had about a week’s notice before the new arrivals came – approximately 500 people, over a couple of days -from many different countries, including Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of Congo and Cameroon. Single men and women, and many families with young children We were able to learn from the experience of having a mass influx last summer and be better prepared this time around, with some general information about our services and activities in some of the different languages – Farsi, Arabic, French, Kurdish.

Continue reading “Project Update – 8th May 2019”

The last few weeks of the 2018 were all hands on deck, maintaining our activities with a small team whilst working on setting up our new Social Space and preparing the centre to be closed for the Christmas period.

Continue reading “Project update – 3rd February 2019”

The last three months have been as busy as ever for our team.
Since our last post, the scorching summer has been replaced with chillier winter weather, and in the last few days it has been all action stations as we scramble to dig out the heaters from the back of the container and everyone learns very quickly to wear a few more layers.

Continue reading “Project update – 27th November 2018”

Back in June, We Are Here teamed up with A Drop in the Ocean to hold a party for Eid, to celebrate the end of Ramadan, and it was a really special day to be part of. There was water fun and other activities for the children, sports for the adults, and 5 different communities from the camp working hard all day to cook food from their regions to serve up a feast for 500 people. After the food came music and dancing, and some performances from residents. It was also an opportunity to ensure a good meal was provided for those in the camp who are still having trouble accessing enough food. Continue reading “Project Update – July 31st”

We’re happy to be a bigger team at the moment and have some extra manpower to do some of those odd jobs we never get round to doing with a full schedule. It’s already extremely hot here in Northern Greece, and we want to get them out of the way before Continue reading “Project Update – 11th June 2018”

We’re always busy, but it seems somehow we’re even busier than usual these days, and with fieldwork always taking priority over updates, there’s a lot to catch up on!

Our Child-Friendly Space for children aged 1-3 has come along very well since its Continue reading “Project update – Nea Kavala, 8th May 2018”

We’re enjoying the early spring in Nea Kavala, seeing people out and about, enjoying the sunshine. We’ve made some positive changes to our programmes over the last few weeks, and are happy with the outcomes. We’ve moved all of our adults’ English classes to the afternoon due to many complaints in our survey about classes being too early in the day. Although we’ve disrupted our current students’ daily routine, we’re excited to see more of the camp residents attending lessons at a more ‘reasonable’ hour. Continue reading “Project update – Nea Kavala, 13th March 2018”

We’re busy as ever providing our regular educational and recreational programme to the residents of Nea Kavala. Attendance levels are high: everyone has adjusted well to our newest timetable changes. The worst of the winter seems to be over, and the sun has helped us by encouraging people out of their warm containers and into our lessons and activities! We’re glad to enjoy this period of pleasant weather before the intense summer heat sets in, boycotting our activities! Continue reading “Project update – Nea Kavala, 22nd February 2018”

It’s been a while since we last updated and we’ve had a very full-on January! Over the Christmas period, We Are Here partnered with Drop in the Ocean to provide some special recreational activities for children, adults and women, as well as some English conversation classes. This allowed many members of our team to have a proper break and enjoy some of the festive season with friends and family, returning well-rested with fresh ideas in early January. We’re extremely grateful to Drop for all of their hard work and generosity over this time, and we are pleased to be working closer alongside them because of this positive experience. Looking forward to updating soon on some of our new ideas and collaboration projects! Watch this space! Continue reading “Project update – Nea Kavala, 30th January 2018”

The Community Centre and Women’s Space are busier than ever! After creating and translating new and improved schedules, we distributed them door to door, and we are happy with our increased attendance, especially from  people towards the back of the camp. For the school-aged children, we distributed school bags full of fun stationery goodies and the kids enjoy showing off their personal pencil cases in class every day. Continue reading “Project update – Nea Kavala, 9th November”