UPDATE 25 September 2017 : We have now met our target for covering our basic costs. Thank you so much everyone! PLEASE do keep donating as ALL donations from now on will be passed on by us to grassroots organisation Samos Volunteers who we have supported in the past (see below). A reminder about their work. They are entirely volunteer run and funded and do everything that all the large international organisations, Greek government, and EU with their billions have failed to do - from feeding, clothing and providing morning hot tea and evening hot water bottles; to building classrooms and an activity centre; to taking women to the beach and teaching them to swim; to teaching English, German and other languages that refugees will need if/ when they resettle; to providing cameras for refugees to record their experiences; to organizing football and chess tournaments and holiday festivities (for ex on Christmas they provided a goodie bag to every child in the camp) and most importantly keeping morale and spirits up when hopelessness is so rife.

They are amazing and we would love to be able to make another significant donation on our third trip to Samos. So please do contribute whatever you can.

Thank you!!

ORIGINAL POST: This is our third volunteer trip to Samos in the past year where we will be providing free legal support and assistance to refugees fleeing from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries. There are currently around 2000 refugees being kept in a detention facility in Samos designed for only 700 people. They are living in crowded, unsanitary, desperate conditions. There are only a handful of lawyers and the need for legal support is overwhelming. Without volunteer lawyers most refugees would receive no assistance in their claims for asylum. On our past trips we have paid for all our travel and subsistence costs ourselves and have only fundraised in order to donate to local organisations. But to continue to make our work sustainable we are now seeking to raise funds for the most basic costs of our trip - airfare and simple accommodation. We would love to beat our target and give all additional funds to an amazing grassroots organisation called Samos Volunteers (https://samosvolunteers.org/), who provide essential humanitarian aid. We have raised funds for them on our previous trips and we are hoping we can do the same again this time.

Thank you for your support.

Lucy and Vijay