Shipments of material of first necessity
Our main task is to organize collections of material of first necessity to send it where necessary.
Our main destination is Lesbos, Greece, where dozens of refugees arrive every day. When arriving, often soaked, they need spare clothes and shoes to be there for the remaining months of uncertainty waiting for a response from the authorities on whether to grant them European asylum or return them to Turkey, the country from where they have crossed.
In addition to clothing and footwear, we often send toys for children and personal hygiene products.
We actively collaborate supporting Lighthouse Relief, Refugee 4 Refugees and Attica Human Support since 2017
The preparation:
- We get information of the needs of the destination where we want to send it and we do the collection exclusively of what is needed. We do not want what we send to be left standing in a warehouse, we want it to be of immediate use.
- We organize the collection campaigns asking very specifically what we need.
- We review and classify clothing and footwear by type, size and sex.
- There are always clothes that can not be sent. Clothing that is not needed or is not suitable for the type of culture of those who receive it (especially women’s clothing). We sell these clothes in second-hand markets to re-invest the profits in buying more necessary things.
- We put it in standard size boxes 60x40x40cm duly labeled to be able to mount it in pales and send it by air transport.
The shipment:
This is the most important part of all and often the barrier that makes it usually not possible to send second-hand material in this way. Shipping costs tend to be more expensive than the material itself.
Fortunately and thanks to the collaboration we have with DHL, we have the possibility of sending humanitarian material wherever it is needed at a European level.
Talks and activities
We believe that the dissemination of what is still happening with the refugees is very important. Although the media only talks about it when it affects our country, it is a global problem that continues to happen and we can not forget.
Stay tuned to our social networks on the next talks we organize in which we update you, raise awareness and discuss issues that we often think they are too far away.
Second-hand markets and fairs
In the collections of clothes we often find that there is material that we can not send either because it is not adequate or because it is not necessary at this time. When we have enough, we participate in second-hand markets to sell this surplus and re-invest it in buying that material that is harder for us to obtain second hand.
We also participate in fairs of entities or cultural events such as Sant Jordi where we sell books to collect funds and make ourselves known.
