Company · Civic and Social Organizations

One Happy Family

WITH the people - not FOR them! «One Happy Family» is a community center on the Greek island of Lesvos. Lesvos is, due to the close distance to Turkey, an important waypoint for people fleeing from wars and crises in the Middle-East and Northern Africa. These people stay on the island for many month, as the EU-Turkey deal hinders the continuation of their journey to the mainland. Because of the severe human rights situation in Turkey, they can also not be sent back in most cases. With our center, which is growing steadily and welcomes several hundred people every day, do we fill gaps which have been created by insufficient humanitarian aid and lack of governmental intervention. Our aim is to give a piece of dignity and self-determination back to the thousands of people which are stuck on Lesvos. In the center, there are many projects, which have been built upon request and initiative of the refugees. The community center is not being built and run FOR the people, but WITH them. Together with people from different nations, volunteers and fled people, it will become a community. The people from the camps are not only engaged in building and running but also in idea finding and decision making. That’s how we want to give them back some independency, automotive and a sense of responsibility. Those people often live in total dependency of governmental help and NGOs. Most of them don’t want that. They want to help themselves. Self-determined instead of determined by others. The project is financed by private donations.