Lampen voor veiligheid van vrouwen en kinderen in Idomeni

Ido­meni is a small vil­lage in Greece, close to the Mace­do­ni­an bor­der. The refugee camp loc­ated here is home to 10.000 dis­placed daugh­ters and sons, moth­ers and fath­ers who ar­rived here after an ar­du­ous jour­ney from their home coun­try; forced to flee due to war, con­flict and per­se­cu­tion. They left their homes, be­long­ings and of­ten even fam­ily mem­bers be­hind, in search of safety.
However, the stand­ard of liv­ing in this refugee camp is way be­low ac­cept­able. The people don’t have enough food to eat, there are no suf­fi­cient wa­ter sources to wash them­selves and most areas of the camp have no elec­tri­city at night. This leads to pitch black and danger, night after night. Light is cru­cial for safety and se­cur­ity among dis­placed com­munit­ies, es­pe­cially wo­men and chil­dren, who are most vul­ner­able in the dark. To provide safety for the wo­men and chil­dren in the camp, light is es­sen­tial.
Five vo­lun­teers, Frans Basti­aens, Mir­jam Kemp and Imre van der Linden from the Neth­er­lands and Anne O’Rourke and Lisa Hughes Kelly, from Ire­land, took the ini­ti­at­ive to help even more. They raised money to be able to provide dis­placed fam­il­ies in Ido­meni with WakaWa­kas.
With their ef­forts and a dona­tion from the HIT Found­a­tion, Cordaid and the WakaWaka Found­a­tion, they were able to give 1.000 dis­placed fam­il­ies safe light and power. The WakaWa­kas have ar­rived at the Ido­meni camp, help­ing wo­men and chil­dren to feel safer with bright­er nights.