Tragedy and hope in camp

Papatowai man Keith Olsen recently spent four weeks helping young people in a refugee camp in Greece. He spoke to Elena McPhee about the experience.

Boredom - and hope - were the impressions a Catlins teacher and illustrator was left with after a month spent helping young people left in limbo after escaping war-torn Syria and Iraq.

In August, Papatowai man Keith Olsen headed to the Ritsona refugee camp in Greece for four weeks, working with young people through the Lighthouse Relief organisation.

Despite all of the refugees' basic needs being taken care of in the camp, there was little for them to do, and some had been there for two years.

The refugees were reliant on voluntary organisations to provide them with entertainment.

"My feeling in wanting to go there was that I can imagine what it must be like to be a young person with nothing to look forward to,'' Mr Olsen said.

"Life goes on, but it's not life as we know it.''

The closure of borders in other European countries in 2016 left tens of thousands of people stranded in camps across mainland Greece.

Ritsona, about 70km north of Athens, is home to about 800 refugees.

Most are Syrian or Iraqi and have braved the perilous voyage across the sea from Turkey to the Greek island of Lesbos, desperately seeking a better future.

Mr Olsen said a poignant memory was of speaking to a boy who hoped to make his way to Germany where his sister and father were living - in refugee camps in separate parts of the country.

Mr Olsen was one of several volunteers, and his role was mainly engaging youth aged between 12 and 26, including music lessons and setting up rope-climbing activities for them on trees at the camp.

He also did his own sketches of some of the residents, which were popular.

"I felt quite good about that, because it was something you could do for someone which wasn't just like a handout,'' Mr Olsen said.

"At one stage I did a portrait from a photo on someone's cellphone. It was somebody's father, and I think it was quite obvious that [he] had been killed back in Syria.''

One boy he spoke to said the trip from Turkey to Greece was "the worst night of his life'' and he could not talk about it because it was too disturbing.

Some of the younger children also exhibited "unusual behaviour'', including aggression.

With his outdoor activities he was trying to "soak up'' the energy of young people who might otherwise be involved in more antisocial things, he said.

The young women living in the camp shied away from getting involved in the activities on offer - until one of the female volunteers set up a special girls-only fashion workshop for them.

Mr Olsen and his wife, Diana Noonan, have a longstanding connection with Greece and Mr Olsen said he would be keen to return and do more work helping refugees one day.

Spending more time at the camp and being able to form more of a relationship with the residents would have been ideal, Mr Olsen said.

After leaving the camp, Mr Olsen and Ms Noonan travelled to Bangladesh, where Ms Noonan was involved in a Save The Children project in the town of Daulatdia.

elena.mcphee@odt.co.nz