First of all: we are still here and we are growing! The No Border Social Center at the beach is getting more and more visitors every day and also the nbk team is growing. Our Social Center is on the one hand a place where people can get decent food, drink tea and coffee, and get new clothes once a week. On the other hand it is a place where we all meet, talk, cook together, build friendships and show solidarity. The nbk team is growing every week with people joining us from Moria or Karatepe camp and also the people refusing to stay in the camp and sleeping in the forests.

In the last week we were working hard to make our Social Center as beautiful as possible. We built a kitchen for collective cooking, a womens space and a children area. Also we are starting to prepare the area for the coming rainy season, we make the tents waterproof and build weather proof sitting areas.

At the same times our stoves in the kitchen are also running hot. As more and more people arrive in Lesvos and others flee the worsening conditions in Moria, the number of meals we serve every day is growing. This weeks we are serving at least 700 meals every day.

Our work here is necessary and appreciated by many people. The conditions in Moria camp extend everything the word “bad” could describe. Moria is incredibly overcrowded, the sanitary conditions are horrible, there is a severe lack of food, especially decent food, and violence is growing. Moria is not a safe place for anyone. Despite the constant presence of police and military and fences with barbed wire, there is also a lot of harassment of women and violence between inhabitants of the camp. Most importantly, Moria is a prisons that keeps thousands of refugees trapped on this island.

So we have to keep fighting! At the moment we are up and running, but our situation is not sure at all. Just a few days ago the police started harassing us while distributing food and even though they didn’t explicitly threaten the social center (yet), we cannot be sure how long we can keep up this place after having been evicted twice this summer already.

Of course giving out hot meals will not open the borders, we also have to take the fight into the street. In the past weeks Lesvos has seen a growing numbers of protests in the city center from refugees. And these protests will continue, we will not stay silent while the governments and politicians keep on expanding Fortress Europe. They not only ignore people suffering in Lesvos and whole Europe but also work on building more fences, giving more money to Frontex and plan to change more laws that could soon practically abolish the remaining possibility to claim asylum in Europe. No Border Kitchen Lesvos will continue to struggle and we will raise our voice in solidarity with all people trapped in Lesvos, all people on the move in Europe, and all people that fight against the inhuman border regime.

We invite you all to keep on struggling with us, in Lesvos, Greece and everywhere! Let’s fight against Europe’s borders together and lets destroy them.

We send a lot of love and rage to all people fighting against these borders and happily welcome any kind of solidarity and support that you can offer us. Especially in the coming winter support will be needed. For more infos on how to support No Border Kitchen Lesvos visit our blog or write us an e-mail.

Lets make Fortress Europe history!

Your NBK team