Read an interview with Georgie Smith and Máiréad McElligott from the Donations Team to learn more about the important role played by this section of Madrid For Refugees.
Georgie, from Wales, has been in Madrid since 2014. A passionate volunteer and environmentalist, she works with a number of organisations which help both people and the environment in a variety of ways. She loves going on long walks in the Gower Peninsula in her home town of Swansea and doing a quick litter pick on the way! For the last six months, Georgie has served as the Team Leader of Donations.
Máiréad is from Ireland and moved to Madrid in 2013 for the sunshine and the red wine; she hasn’t been disappointed on either front. She felt compelled to join MFR when the woeful lack of official government responses to the refugee crisis became too great to ignore. Máiréad oversees the Donations Team and in her day job works as an Editor. She loves proper punctuation.
Georgie:
How and why did you get involved with MFR?
I’ve done different kinds of volunteering for years, and I am always looking for a new project. As the horrific situations in which many refugees were finding themselves in began to be reported on such a massive scale, I felt that this was where I should turn my attention.
I saw on Facebook that a recent group had been created called Madrid For Refugees to help refugees at a local level here in Madrid. That interested me a lot, as I enjoy a hands-on approach regarding volunteer work, which I felt was achievable in this kind of group.
Why did you choose to join the donations team?
As I mentioned, hands-on is how I love to volunteer, and the donations team gives me exactly that opportunity. I was also given the chance to become Team Leader of this section of the Association, which I felt very privileged to undertake, and I’ve loved every minute of the work.
Since joining MFR, how has your perspective on the refugee situation changed?
Since joining the association, I have had the privilege of meeting refugees first hand for the first time in my life, and get to know them as individuals. I think, for me, one of the biggest realisations was understanding how similar refugees are to anyone in any ordinary situation, in the sense that they are highly educated, with skilled jobs that they were forced to abandon as war encroached on their lives. In short, for me MFR has helped me tear up the typical image you see in a newspaper of thousands of people crossing borders or seas clutching a few possessions. It made me realise that any one of us could be in that situation.
Can you tell us about a memorable experience delivering donations?
My two most memorable donations have happened since I became Team Leader of donations, as what we achieved made me really proud. One was the delivery of hundreds of pairs of sports trainers and clothing to a refugee centre so that kids could take part in Physical Education in school. Logistically, it was the biggest donation drive I’d personally undertaken and organised at the time, so seeing it all come together was wonderful. Watching people search through the donations and find things that are perfect for them is just so special, especially when you see the big smiles on their faces.
Another experience I loved was meeting Khaled (the Syrian chef who recently cooked at MFR’s Chefugee event) for the first time when I accompanied a donor on a delivery to his flat, and we were invited in for a drink and a chat. We have since kept in contact and it’s been so interesting to listen to his story and learn more and more about the situations in which people find themselves in from someone who has lived it. It’s also been wonderful to see some refugees settle increasingly into the community here in Madrid, and working in the Donations Team has allowed me to have relationships with many of these amazing people, for which I am extremely grateful.
How does the donations team fit in with the bigger picture of MFR?
I think Donations forms a really fundamental branch of what MFR is about. As an association we are increasingly expanding into new areas such as Events, and Donations has always formed part of the core of what we do. From my perspective, by providing refugees with the basics that everyone needs to be able to live comfortably, they can then use this as a stepping stone for everything that follows.
What needs do we foresee in the coming months?
Our work with the refugee centre is ongoing, and so this always highlights different needs that we make our mission to fill. These greatly depend on many factors including the time of year (warm or cool clothes) and a high intake of children at certain times (stationary, clothes, shoes, school supplies, etc.) among other things. We also work with families and individuals who leave refugee centres and begin to start their lives here in Madrid. These needs also greatly vary depending on the family or individual’s requirements and situations.
If someone’s interested in joining the donations team, what can they do to help?
There are many ways they can help, depending on what they have to offer. For example, we are always looking for dedicated volunteers who can reserve a couple of hours a week to collect donations, as items can often come from all around Madrid and it’s quite a lot of work to collect them all! We also always need drivers who can drive our donations to their destinations, whether this is the refugee centre or a specific flat or house somewhere in Madrid. Providing drop-off points by allowing people to leave donations in a volunteer’s flat or work place is also really helpful, as it gives donors more options.
Anything else?
I will be leaving Madrid shortly, and so I will regrettably be leaving my post at MFR. I’d like to take this opportunity to say that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed working with such a wonderful group of individuals with such talent, positivity and a desire to make a difference. It has been an absolute pleasure and I’m so, so grateful to have had the chance to work with them and learn so much. I’ll miss you all, but keep up the inspiring work!
Máiréad:
How and why did you get involved with MFR?
At the end of last summer, I saw that a group had been formed on Facebook and that the organisers were holding a general meeting to set up teams and put things in place to be ready for the thousands of refugees that, at that time, were expected to arrive at any moment in Madrid. The media was filled with images of refugees arriving in Lesbos, thousands every day, people fleeing the war in Syria, many of whom had lost their homes, family members, everything really. Like a lot of people, I expected that Spain would be taking its share of these displaced people, and I wanted to be involved in helping in some way when they arrived here.
Why did you choose to join the donations team?
A few days before that first meeting everyone filled out a simple form with the skills they could offer and the areas that they wanted to get involved with. I don’t remember exactly what I wrote, but I guess that there were plenty of English teaching volunteers, as I was asked to sit at the donations table!
Since joining MFR, how has your perspective on the refugee situation in Spain/Europe changed?
Well, as everyone knows, we are still waiting for the huge numbers of refugees to arrive here in Spain. I thought the peak of the crisis must surely be those days last September when graphic, upsetting pictures of children who had drowned while trying to reach Lesbos were shown across the world. But how much has changed really? Children and their families continue to die. The war is still going on. It’s maddening to think about the lack of political will to deal with the crisis. It’s hard to keep reading about entire families lost at sea, heartbreaking to think about babies, toddlers, children without someone to look after them, to hug them and tell them everything will be okay, or even to explain what is happening. Europe continues to look on and do nothing. The general public is experiencing compassion fatigue I think, and prefer not to think about these things. I suppose my perspective has changed in the sense that I became more aware of what was happening, and I started to think of the events in terms of individuals affected, rather than simply statistics. Now I just try to keep abreast of what is going on, while focusing on what is possible to do in small, practical ways through MFR.
How does the Donations Team fit into the bigger picture of MFR?
For the first several months MFR operated as a group of volunteers who wanted to ‘do something’ to help refugees. A lot of the work centred around donation drives; we collected and sorted clothing, bedding, tinned food and hygiene products to contribute to shipments sent by AAPS to the Turkish border. During this time we were also reaching out to the Centro de Acogida a Refugiados (CAR) in Vallecas, to the south of Madrid. Through the Asociación Cultural La Kalle, we are now able to run donation drives and organise weekly music, language and sports classes for the refugees staying there. We’re currently running a donation drive for summer clothing for the adults there, and we also help families who are about to move out of the centre into private accommodation by posting donation requests for things like household items that they might need to set up in their new place. The Donations Team is often the first point of contact that a refugee might have with Madrid For Refugees. It’s important for us to create a good rapport, to help if we can by making donation appeals on their behalf, while at the same time respecting their privacy and their dignity. For most people, it’s very hard to find themselves in need of charity, to have to ask someone for help to get a microwave or bedding. Their lives were not always like this. At the same time we do not want to encourage a situation where a refugee becomes dependent on MFR. The Donations Team works closely with the Jobs and Community Integration and Refugee Business Support Teams in particular to see if there are ways that we can help the refugees we are in contact with to support themselves.
Can you tell us about a memorable experience delivering donations?
I’m afraid that at times some people who are donating items don’t give much thought to the person who will be receiving it. They see a donation drive as an opportunity to clear out their wardrobe or declutter. It has been my misfortune to come across torn, stained, dirty bedding and even underwear (!) during donation sorts. For this reason we always sort through everything we receive and recycle any cloth items that are not in good condition. One day I had met with two different donors to accept some household items on behalf of a refugee family who had recently moved into their own flat from the refugee centre. One of the bags contained some frying pans and a saucepan that were frankly just dirty. It was nothing that a good wash didn’t fix, but it was with trepidation that I opened a sealed box marked ‘coffee set’ from the other donor. Sitting on top, above the clean, carefully wrapped cups, was a picture drawn by a child that had the word ‘Welcome’ written across the top. It made my heart sing to think that that family had taken the time to explain to their child who the box was for, and how it might make them feel to receive it and know that another family living in the same city wanted them to feel welcome.
What needs do we foresee in the coming months?
In the spring, Madrid For Refugees applied for and received the status of an Association. It will be two years before businesses who donate to us are able to apply for tax relief for their donation, however it does mean that from now we can accept monetary donations from individuals and businesses. MFR’s aim is to help both refugees here in Madrid and abroad. We will continue to run donation drives for clothing and household items for the refugees that we are in contact with here in Madrid, however we will also be working closely with the NGO team to see about helping refugees who are displaced in camps abroad. This will be through specific projects identified by the NGO team.
Anything else?
As Georgie mentioned, she will soon be leaving Madrid, and so I will be aiming to recruit a new Team Leader for Donations. Georgie has been a total pleasure to work with; she approached every donation drive, every sort and every delivery with a wonderful mixture of practicality and enthusiasm. It’s a hard act to follow, and on behalf of MFR, I wish her the very best for the future.
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If you are interested in volunteering with the Donations Team, or would like more information, please do get in touch! Email donations@madridforrefugees.org
