Hi!
I am crowdfunding to assist travel and living expenses for my volunteer mission to Thessaloniki refugee camp Greece this Jan/Feb 2017. I am volunteering for Nurture Project International (NPI) www.nurtureprojectinternational.org Health professionals and lay volunteers working to provide specialized technical care to families in crisis.
Displacement of populations in crisis greatly impacts on the health and nutrition status of infants and young children. During emergencies rates of child mortality can soar up to 70 times higher than average. The backbone of Nurture Project International is to provide assessment and specialized provision for mothers (ante and post natal), caregivers and young children under the guidelines of the ‘ International Convention of the Rights of the Child’ ,’Infant and Young Child Feeding in Emergencies (and others) .
NPI builds mother and baby tents in refugee camps where women can rest,feed and care for their infants in a safe, welcoming place. Baby hygiene stations, food, support, information and health care are provided. Optimal breastfeeding wherever possible is encouraged and supported and appropriate, safe complimentary feeding is established as a main strategy of reducing child mortality . On This trip I will be working in the mother and baby tents under the guidelines set out above. I may also take my facepainting and Henna kit too as it was such fun to share with women and kids in Calais! I have estimated my total costs to be around £400 pounds. If I raise anymore then I will donate it to NPI.
This will be my third time working in a refugee camp . I have twice been to Calais where we built gardens, play equipment and dropped mass distributions of flowers every day in an effort to bring ‘A little bit of happiness’ to people who are going through the worst times of their lives , facing unknown futures with astounding hope and resilience. I hope my third trip builds on previous experience to be as beneficial.