I’m on the Greek island of Chios to volunteer for a week with our partner Refugee Biriyani and Bananas (RBB). Ruhi, the RBB Founder/CEO, needed an extra van driver for the later part of the 10 day distribution and so I came to lend a hand.
We started early – in a container yard! Fill up the blue van with 250 food packs and 250 winter packs and then the white van with 150 of each. (White van gets less because it’s very old and lucky to still be running!). The rest of the team had worked hard making up the packs before I got there.
It was just 9am when we got to the distribution point. Close to Vial Refugee Camp, but not within sight of it. An off road area where the police and locals tolerate our presence. (Do they have a choice? We’re not doing anything wrong, even if we’re made to feel like we are.)
Despite the early hour, a man and his two little children were already waiting for us to arrive. Some of our community team go into the camp to start giving out the days’ tickets. That is, raffle tickets which mean the person can come and collect their packs. It’s done this way so that the number of people arriving at once is manageable, to be sure we have enough packs with us for everyone who comes, and to make sure everyone in camp is fairly distributed to. The ticketing team go section by section in camp knocking on iso box and tent doors, checking the person or family’s police papers (cartiers, white cards, red cards, ausweis… they go by lots of names!) to say when they can come to distribution and what they can get.
The authorities don’t let volunteers like me into the camps any more. That’s because they don’t want us telling, or showing through photos and videos, the outside world how awful the camps are, and because it serves their agenda to try and further divide “us and them”.
Armed with their raffle ticket and police papers, people come and find us on our back road and queue for their turn.
If people didn’t need they wouldn’t come. Everyone always comes.
Each person in a family from baby up gets a food bag. Those over the age of 10 get a winter pack as well. Over time, with costs going up and fundraising getting harder, the contents have got a bit less. But still everyone comes because their need is real.
Food pack – cooking oil, sugar, rice, coffee, tin of tomatoes, tin of chickpeas & a tin of fish.
Winter pack – raincoat/poncho, thermal socks & thermal gloves.
When the blue van was empty four of us went back to the containers for more. Another 88 food packs collected whilst the rest of the team continued giving out the 150 packs in the white van.
We stop when everyone with a ticket has had the chance to come.

The moon replaced the sun in the sky and we volunteers reached for our scarves and coats because the winter night temperatures drop a lot.
We ran out of packs and realised there are more people in camp than the official UNHCR numbers of 1094. We need another 200 packs but it’s Sunday and the items can’t be ordered. Chios is an island and the food has to come from Athens which means it’ll be Tuesday at the earliest before we can continue. We still have the unaccompanied minors and a “Sudanese tent with nearly 100 people in it” to help. Not finishing everyone equally just isn’t an option.
Later that night the heavens opened and all our minds inevitably went to the people in camp. In tents, in leaky old iso boxes… The torrential rain continued throughout today .
Tonight the ferry left for Athens from opposite where we’re staying. I watched about 200 people in the queue – families, young babies and toddlers, groups of young friends.
I was thinking about how excited and happy they must be to leave Chios. And I couldn’t help but wonder if they were relieved to be leaving safely on a ferry and even with suitcases and belongings, instead of a dinghy in the hands of smugglers.
At the same time they have no idea what’s coming next.
I know what’s next for them.
They have a long ferry crossing, followed by a long bus journey, followed by months in a remote CCAC – Closed Controlled Access Centre. Some could end up in detention, others just stuck for a long time in limbo. Bad accommodation, bad food, bad hygiene and severe boredom. As one friend said tonight – Their real alienation from their homelands began from this moment. Good luck to them..
Can they please at least find some kindness wherever they’re going?
A day in the life with Refugee Biriyani & Bananas.