Compass are proud to be teaming up with Emily Wright, part of Sussex Refugee Solidarity, who is currently raising money to ship aid to refugees and asylum seekers arriving in Samos and Leros.
“Grassroots civilian volunteers are working flat out on the islands of Leros and Chios to try to provide dry clothing and food to refugees fleeing war and persecution. Families of men, women, children and babies often arrive traumatised, injured and soaked to the skin. Leros is urgently in need of children’s clothing so that they can provide warm dry clothes to younger and older children when they arrive on these flimsy boats. Chios are in desperate need of warm clothing for babies.
Please give generously so we can ship our aid to people who need it as quickly as possible. Your donation will mean that many children and babies have warm dry clothes to sleep in, and this could mean the difference between life and death as winter sets in.”
– Emily Wright, Fundraising Campaigner
Sussex Refugee Solidarity are a local community support and action group for refugees, set up by parents in Sussex. You can find out more about what they do on their website and Facebook page.
Compass have been working closely with local authorities to try to provide homes for unaccompaned asylum seeking children arriving in the UK. You can listen to Bernie Gibson, Compass MD, talk about the subject on BBC Radio 5 Live.
Update
Many thanks to everybody at Compass Fostering who have worked so hard to collect, sort and box vital aid of coats and shoes for refugees in transit across Europe. Due the swiftly changing situation at the Greek- Macedonian border, resulting in the closure of the border into Macedonia (or FYROM), and the needs of Chios (our original destination) now being largely met and their warehouse filled, we have made the decision to redirect the aid to Idomeni in Greece, where it is currently most needed. Tens of thousands of people are massing at this border in the hope of crossing, and the conditions are truly awful.
Rain and cold weather means that a huge number of people, many many of those being children and families, are sleeping in flimsy tents, or out in the open, often on top of waterlogged blankets. Young children are walking around in the mud in bare feet. One of the strengths of independent aid collections is that they can be quickly redirected to developing emergency situations, and your shoes and coats will make a huge and immediate difference to those that receive them in Idomeni. I’ve updated the text of our fundraising page to reflect that we are now shipping to many different destinations across Europe, and that we also hope to begin to use any funds leftover from sending shipments to make refugees and asylum seekers welcome locally.
Please do donate to our fundraiser and share it widely.
Emily Wright Sussex Refugee Solidarity Group.
