2 September 2015 | Ljubljana, Slovenia [ADRA Slovenia, tedNEWS] A plane full of humanitarian aid material collected by ADRA Slovenia arrived on Lesbos, Greece, on Friday, 28 August 2015. The ADRA Slovenia volunteers based in Molyvos distributed incoming aid over the weekend. The much needed help is going to the migrants in town of Molyvos, who mainly come from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia.
ADRA Slovenia had the opportunity to send humanitarian aid to Lesbos on Monday evening, 24 August, via HOC – Humanitarian response centre which is operated by SLOGA, (Slovenian Non-Governmental Organisations for development co-operation and humanitarian aid). A request was sent to HOC by a doctor and a vet who were on holiday on Lesbos. They saw a lot of migrants in distress and no one to assist them. There was not much time for planning the action since the cargo had to be at the Slovenian national airport by 3pm on Thursday for the last charter flight to Lesbos the following morning.
Using social media to promote the action, the collection initially started with monetary donations, but shortly afterwards, people from all around Slovenia started organising themselves, volunteering and the need to open more collection points emerged. By the end of the day, eleven official collection points were opened, with more than a dozen unofficial points. This attracted a lot of media coverage in Slovenia and both private and national news stations featured this as their cover story.
The donations kept coming even on Thursday, the day of transport, causing a traffic jam on the main road in Ljubljana.
Even with the blocked roads, the Slovenian army, along with the group of ADRA volunteers, managed to transport all the boxes to the airport two hours ahead of the schedule.
Since ADRA Slovenia managed to collect much more in-kind donations than was able to transport to Lesbos, they joined forces with ADRA Serbia. After successful negotiations with Slovenian railways to cover the cost of transport, the rest of the donations will be sent to Belgrade, Serbia, by the end of this week.
The quick and very successful action was supported by Adria Airways – the Slovenian national airlines, which donated the transport of cargo. Both airports – in Ljubljana, Slovenia and on Lesbos, Greece – renounced the tax and other fees. These activities generated considerable media coverage, as ADRA Slovenia was the first organisation in Slovenia to collect and send humanitarian aid to any migrants – in the latest migrant crisis.
For more information about ADRA Slovenia or if you would like to support their actions, please contact their office on [email protected] or visit their website: www.adra.si [tedNEWS]
tedNEWS Staff: Deana Stojković, editor
119 St Peter’s Street, St Albans, Herts, AL1 3EY, England
E-mail: [email protected]
Website: www.ted-adventist.org
tedNEWS is an information bulletin issued by the communication department of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the Trans-European Division.
You are free to re-print any portion of the bulletin without need for special permission. However, we kindly request that you identify tedNEWS whenever you publish these materials.
