On the Island of Lesbos, three university students put skills, not money, to use

Three volunteers give us an account of their time in Lesbos where some 3000 refugees are arriving every day

Each day thousands of refugees flee war-torn regions to make often deadly journeys to Europe in search of a better life. The huge influx of refugees, arriving mostly by sea, has resulted in the deaths of over 1,200 people since April 2015, highlighting the depth of the “refugee crisis.”

We had an opportunity to speak with three volunteers who quite literally packed their bags and headed to the Greek island of Lesbos, where some 3,000 refugees are arriving every day.

Left to right: Lucas Duncun, Kate Hughes and Ellyse Kilarski. PHOTO: KATE HUGHES

“One of my really good friends and his wife (both nurses) were fundraising money to help the refugees in the crisis. When I sent some money to help out, he replied with a message saying ‘I don’t want your money, I want your skills,” said 27-year-old Canadian Ellyse Kilarski, who is studying Global Health and Public Policy at the University of Edinburgh.

Deeply touched by the appeal, Ellyse instantly booked a flight to Greece in a bid to overcome feelings of “helplessness and powerlessness”. The same day she made her plans known to her friends, Kate and Lucas, who unhesitatingly, decided to join her.

Kate, 24, who is currently doing a Masters in Health Inequalities and Public Policy, associated the ‘unfairness’ of the refugee crisis as the primary motivation behind her move to volunteer.

On the other hand, Canadian citizen Lucas, 26, who is studying Medical Anthropology, was more interested in observing first-hand, the spillover effects of the Syrian civil war and the ‘visceral response’ to people in distress.



The volunteers worked with an NGO, Health Point Project, set up by a British doctor in UNHCR-ran Moria refugee camp. Upon arrival in Lesbos, Lucas described, they were met with the sight of a coastline littered with fluorescent lifejackets and disorganised bands of benevolent aid workers.

Quickly joining the others, the three began providing medical nursing care that involved triaging patients, dealing with wounds, assisting especially vulnerable families to find shelter, as well as providing supplies such as sleeping bags.

“Illness in the broadest sense is rampant in the camps. The refugees have physical injuries; many are also suffering from chronic health-related illness. More common than both those illnesses, however, were social and psychological infirmities”, shared Lucas.

The camp of Moria, and the surrounding fields wherein refugees lie for weeks awaiting documentation, was understaffed, poorly organised, and lacking basic infrastructure. PHOTO: LUCAS DUNCAN

Seeing the first steps of these refugees onto European shores happen in a panicked fury, Lucas noted the “sad irony” of the situation. “Despite the atrocities many refugees have faced and the perilous journey, they bravely stood over the aquamarine blue of Lesbos’s shoreline. The energy mostly came from the volunteers’ enthusiastic desire to participate in an otherwise calm situation,” he explained.

Witnessing the harsh reality of the crisis, Kate said the experience helped her come to terms with a very simple fact of life. “When you see people the same age as you sleeping on the bare ground, or parents with tiny babies who’ve risked everything to sail them across a dangerous sea, it just hits home how unfair things are in the world – and how so many things in life just seem to occur because of the luck of where you are born”, she said.

“The refugees’ bravery in making this journey is itself a reason for them to be celebrated and welcomed into Europe and across the world,” she added.



The biggest take for Lucas was realising how the word ‘refugee’ was anonymising, and that too in derogatory fashion. He lamented the human potential that was being lost to the conflict, to the waters of the Aegean, and lackluster asylum policy making.

The volunteers also found many widely-held beliefs about refugees to be borne purely out of ignorance. They discovered how refugees were predominantly from the middle and upper classes from their origin countries. “In Syria, these people fit into the same class as I would be and that made it all the more real for me,” said Ellyse.

When asked about their toughest experiences, Kate narrated an incident from an unfortunate night when there were too many people for the number of beds available. “To be on one side of a locked gate and to look through a fence into a parents eyes when they’re holding an ill child, and then tell them that they have to sleep on the ground outside was really tough,” she said.

For Ellyse, it was seeing a little boy born with Down syndrome and a congenital heart defect sleep outside in a refugee camp. “Seeing the kids and the babies was difficult because that’s just something they should ever have to live through. No one should, especially not them”, she said.

The camp populations are most often suffering from deprivation of culture, a home. Their families have been ruptured; fathers, mothers, and children separated – conceivably for their indefinite future. PHOTO: LUCAS DUNCAN

Discussing the war in Syria, Kate said, “I do not think that a bombing campaign is the way forward and it will only cause more human tragedy. These are ordinary people who have faced unimaginable hardships and dangers and are just trying to find better lives and safety for themselves and their families. The UK, and the rest of Europe, has an obligation to help them.”

Supporting Kate’s view, Lucas added, “Morally, it is an absurdity. But you could avoid the moral argument altogether and do the math. Indiscriminant bombing destroys a state’s infrastructure while injuring or killing as many – if not more – civilians than combatants. It’s ineffective.” In his view, “Due to the severity and protracted nature of the circumstance it is evident that our current modus operandi is useless.”

On a more positive note, Kate described the satisfaction of seeing refugees successfully register with the Greek police and able to leave the refugee camp to carry on with their journey.” For Lucas, it was seeing hope in the eyes of the refugees in hopeless situations. “Everyone I met was ambitious and optimistic about the life they would get to make for themselves and their families in Europe,” he said.

Another moment that inspired Kate was when she met an 18-year-old Afghan man travelling with his wife, parents and one-month-old baby daughter. She recalled the heartfelt story of the Afghan man who proudly informed Kate about his daughter, whom he referred to as “a little warrior”, being born on the beaches of Turkey. “Carrying her around completely wrapped and covered in fleece blankets to keep her warm, he was very positive about his daughter’s future,” she told The Express Tribune.

Ellyse: "When it was quiet I would stroll around the camp with a backpack full of supplies and visit tents to check up on the woman and children. When everyone was well, we would visit with people, hand out food from the volunteer trucks and assist people into finding shelter in the Vulnerable Persons Tent." PHOTO: LUCAS DUNCAN.

Ellyse too, shared the bittersweet welcoming of a Syrian father, who arrived with his wife and two young children in one of the boats on a cold night. “The four of them were all soaked. As we were finding clothes for the dad, he handed me his son and I asked him how his boat journey was. Looking at me, tears running down his face, he whispered, ‘So scary’.” Seeing the man tremble with shock and at the same time sensing a feeling of relief that he and his family were alive, Ellyse was exposed to a “heartbreaking and powerful moment.”



Through their experience, the volunteers discovered that there are large numbers of people fulfilling their social responsibility as global citizens. In Ellyse’s words, she was able to see that “The world isn’t going downhill at such a rapid rate as is projected through media. There is still a lot of good left and those good people are working to make it a better place for those that need help the most.”