Earth Medicine: Caring for Refugees in Greece

This campaign began five years ago, when Syrian refugees began to fill the shores of my adopted home, the island of Lesvos, Greece. The original sum of money went to a Greek first responder organization called Asteri/Starfish.

Once again, the shores of Lesvos are filling with desperate refugees. Now I am fundraising for another small grassroots organization whose volunteers work one-on-one with injured people in the Kara Tepes Refugee Camp on the island. Earth Medicine is the creation of gifted healer and physiotherapist Fabiola Velasquez. I write about Fabiola, her colleagues, and her work in my latest update of March 3, 2020.

Five years ago, thousands of Syrians, Afghans, and Iraqis were crossing the narrow band of Aegean Sea between Turkey and Lesvos. They landed (as hundreds of refugees are landing now, every day) on an island whose inhabitants are struggling through Greece's economic crisis and an overburdened healthcare system. The two refugee camps and the fields surrounding them are already thousands over capacity. There is only one hospital on the island, in Mytilene, and it services the 20,000 plus refugees plus the 86,000 Greeks who live there. It is a very stressful, sometimes violent situation. Many of the refugees that I met last summer talked about an endless round of physical and mental exhaustion, fear. The camps are unsafe and unsanitary. Europe will not accept more refugees even as the Turkish prime minister Erdogan has opened the Turkish borders, allowing refugees to flee the country. It is a new humanitarian disaster on top of years of humanitarian disasters.  

My name is Karen Connelly. I'm a Canadian writer and trauma therapist with a long-standing interest in human rights for refugees and migrants. www.karenconnelly.ca I've lived on and visited Lesvos for many years, and the suffering on the island is a tragedy that goes on and on.  In 2015, the initial funds of this campaign were donated to Asteri/Starfish, an organization run by Melinda McRostie, a dear friend who was among the first to help refugees in an organized way. Melinda responded to the refugee crisis by organizing food, clothing, and the first refugee shelters. Starfish/Asteri has since become a full-time NGO, helping the refugee population  and assisting staff from UN agencies.

Now I'm raising funds for a different kind of group, much smaller and focused on individual physical and mental trauma care. Fabiola and her volunteer colleagues are working one on one with seriously injured men and women. Please see my March and April updates to learn more about what she and her colleagues do, or visit the website: https://www.theearthmedicine.com/

Depending on the political situation--which involves Syria, Turkey, Greece, and the Corona Virus--I hope to work at Earth Medicine in the early summer as a trauma therapist. Please note that NONE of the donation money will be used to pay for my travel, my work, or my stay on the island. 

The money I collect here will be used to fund patient care at the current small clinic in Kara Tepes (which is housed in a container building---like a trailer). It will also be used to fund refugee housing and travel (necessary when refugees are recovering from surgery--they cannot stay in the camps) and--hopefully-- the creation of another small clinic in the other refugee camp, Moria.   

If you are a physiotherapist, acupuncturist, osteopath, trauma-informed therapist with an interest in volunteering with The Earth Medicine, please contact the clinic directly at     [email redacted]

For a general overview of an increasingly complex situation, here is a short report (with a warning that some of the images are disturbing, though not graphic).

https://www.dw.com/en/tensions-rise-on-lesbos-as-refugees-are-turned-away/av-52620164