Birds of Hope Project – children uniting and providing solidarity through art.

I travel back to Chios in July  just for a few days, this time I wanted to do something different – something related to the importance of human connections.  I have 2 projects I want to do whilst on Chios – the first is the Bird of Hope Project, the second I am still thinking through and I will write about later.

The refugee crisis is not reported any longer –  there were high levels of interest after the discovery of 4-year-old Alan Kurdi’s body on a Lesvos beach in September 2015, but that’s old news now. Many thousands of people have perished since – whole families wiped out, buried in unmarked graves, but their deaths have been largely unreported.
We don’t hear about the rubber dinghy’s crossing the ocean – packed with families escaping war, but every day they come. We don’t hear about the unsanitary refugee camps were people live in tents at the mercy of the changeable weather, trapped for months or years in inhumane conditions with a lack of very basic human needs –their lives in limbo.

For me, providing essential aid to people in the camps is very important, but I passionately believe that human connections, telling the human story and solidarity should be a primary part my work.
It is from this philosophy that the idea for the ‘Birds of Hope’ project took seed. In the past I have taken messages of support when volunteering… as below ..

…but this time with ‘Birds of Hope’ theses messages take on a different twist.

It’s a small thing I am facilitating, I know that, but if it can help some people in camp to feel that they have not been forgotten and abandoned by the wider world then its worth it. This project however, is different as we have the help of a talented artist living locally, George Sfouaras from Greece and funding from University of Leicester for all the materials.
George says; ‘ We aim to form a bridge between children in Leicester and their peers living in the most difficult circumstances in refugee centres in Greece. We will print kites and smaller handheld birds that will be decorated by year 3 students which will carry messages of hope to the Vial camp on the island of Chios. We will also print and decorate a storybook and other images which will be sent over and cards which will be decorated by the recipients and returned to Leicester.”

The University of Leicester have been very supportive of this project and is already very active regarding providing support to refugees and asylum seekers in the City of Leicester. The University was awarded the status of University of Sanctuary in 2018 and is working with a range of organisations across the city and beyond so its been great to have them on board.

As you may know, I am currently training to be a primary school teacher, and it’s the children in my placement school who will produce the Birds of Hope to take to Chios in July.  Also, I will be taking equipment with me to Greece, so the children in Vial Refugee Camp can send message back to the UK.