Volunteers Aid Refugees in Greece

Every day, thousands of refugees arrive on this shore,

hoping to resettle in Europe.

We get many people from Syria,

also from Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran.

Waiting to help them on the beaches of Greece

are the last people the Syrians might expect,

volunteers from Israel.

Our job here is to receive the boats of the refugees

that are coming from the Turkish side to the Greek side.

There are many, many volunteers on the beach.

I take the map, we have a map that we translate on it in Arabic,

explain to them what is the next step.

You know, they don't know where they are, okay?

So the first thing that I tell them is that they are in Lisbon.

island in Greece because some of them they had like no idea where they are.

After a couple of days of assessing the field we understood

that the biggest need is a way to communicate with the refugees

who come so we brought a team from Israel which is Arab speaking and the effect was amazing.

Hearing your language is very important to them and then getting the instructions where to go,

what to do next, what are the next steps because they have a lot of uncertainty.

And although Israel and Syria are technically at war,

none of that matters here on the beach.

Usually when they get to the beach they're just happy to see people waiting for them,

giving them help and food and clothes and medical treatment if they need.