Research on people in crisis areas

Second Emergency Smile mission to Greece’s largest refugee camp

Around 1300 beneficiaries were reached during our two weeks mission to the Greek island of Lesbos.  Our international team from Germany, Lithuania, Palestine and Poland worked in closed cooperation with Doctors Without Borders, Light Without Borders and Refugees 4 Refugees to bring some much-needed psychosocial support to the Moria camp and its surroundings.

Aiming for sustainability: Workshops for humanitarian aid organisations and local staff members

Year after year, humanitarian organisations provide lifesaving services in critical areas. The healthcare and humanitarian staff work uninterruptedly under lots of stress and tension, quickly leading to burnout syndrome and depression.
Thus, Red Noses shares humour expertise with fellow humanitarian aid colleagues to help them cope with the difficult environment they have to deal with every day.
In special workshops, the clowns show how to integrate playfulness and humour into daily work routines, reducing stress levels for everyone.
This time, we succeeded to conduct one humour workshop for 15 humanitarian workers from Refugees 4 Refugees and two other workshops for 17 civilian staff members of the Moria camp. The workshops were a major accomplishment with big bursts of laughter accompanying every exercise.
By training both, local humanitarian workers, as well as staff members of the camp management, our missions have a multiplier effect, and benefit the main target group on a more sustainable basis.

Besides all the challenges we encountered throughout the two weeks we were in Lesbos, the mission was a total success. We manage to bring psychosocial support to hundreds of people, and ended up doing much more than we ever expected.