[Battlemesh] Call for Refugee Camps

i4freegr Community i4freegr at gmail.com
Mon Apr 25 11:01:49 UTC 2016


The i4free-gr community situated in the area of Nafpaktos ( Gulf of Korinth
) near Patra Greece
is working mostly on technical level of wifi-mesh-networks.

We do have a several batman-adv based networks running constantly
developing and adjusting
the necessities of our usecase to provide free internet access.

As of today we do have about 22 routers deployed and working.

At the moment the main focus is the collaboration with universities to
organise talks/seminars to provide
knowhow (Hard- / Software) and to form teams developing,deploying and
running small mesh-networks.

First Teambuilding already started with TEI West Greece.

We do have close contact with the Sarantaporo.gr community.

This week we received an invitation to participate in a working group
initiated by the Greek Ministry of Education via ELLAK.
The working group should assist in organising and building Wifi Internet
access at refugee camps thoughout greece.

We assume there is some funding by the EEC.

We would be glad to assist you in any way possible.

3zl/Reinhard
i4free-gr

i4freegr at gmail
facebook.com/i4free.gr

On Sun, Apr 24, 2016 at 5:13 PM, <berat at autistici.org> wrote:

> Hi everybody,
>
> I want to make a call for the extraordinary situation of refugees who are
> waiting on the borders of Europe. As you know, thousands and thousands of
> people ran away from a war, they have lost their homes, their families,
> loved ones, they have lost their past and the only thing remains is the
> hope for having a future. Finding a safe place to raise their children and
> live a dignified life.
>
> But unfortunately the borders of Europe are closed and hundreds of
> thousands of refugees are blocked in makeshift refugee camps in Greece and
> Turkey for months(if not for more than one year) without knowing what will
> happen. Conditions in refugee camps are worst in every aspect; social,
> health, hygiene, food, and minimum living conditions that would be
> guaranteed by the basic human rights.
>
> Especially now in Idomeni(which is a small village on the border of
> Macedonia) there is a huge refugee camp with more than 10 thousand
> inhabitants who are seeking for an opportunity to reach other European
> countries. There are different humanitarian groups(also associations like
> Doctors Without Borders, UNCHR) from all over the Europe who brings
> materials/goods, help and solidarity.
>
> An Italian group called "Over The Fortress"[0][1] also organizes
> continuous voluntary groups for Idomeni. They basically monitor, do reports
> and support information/basic necessities to the camp. They ultimately
> reported the high necessity of Internet connection and electricity in the
> camp. One of the main reasons, the only way to do an asylum application is
> a Skype call with Athens, which is difficult in a place with very limited
> resources. Even though it is considered as a "cruel and senseless
> procedure."[2] by the activists (and ofcourse they're right) and it should
> be changed as petition demands[2], at the moment this is the only way to
> stay in Greece. Because the agreement between Turkey and UE aims to return
> them back to Turkey, which is definitely not the desire of refugees. On the
> other hand, ofcourse these people need to comunicate with the world outside
> the camp because many of them have parents/familiers in some other parts of
> the world.
>
> So, Over The Fortress brought a generator for eletricity, for light and
> materials for wifi. They made a contract with a Greece ISP which provides
> montlhy 500 Gigabit for 200€[3]. It will be active for 4 months and they
> launched a campaign to sustain the project[4]. But in an ultimate mail that
> arrived, they informed us that the volume of data acquired in the first
> instance is running out of and need to be increased. Sharing this campaign
> with your social networks could be helpful. It can be a temporary solution
> and at this point, contribute of wireless communities can be very important.
>
> The aim of this mail is informing and asking a contribute from wireless
> mesh network communuties about this situation. While we were discussing
> with the Ninux community, they suggested to write to ML Battlemesh, as this
> problem is not temporary and need to be considered in a larger scale.
> Idomeni is just an example and eventhough tomorrow borders had been open,
> this fluss of people would still need many kinds of support and the
> Internet is an important one. They also informed me that some communities
> like Freifunk, already had supported refugees in similar situations, so
> they have experience, which would be very precious to share with us. In the
> specific of Idomeni, contribute/support of Greece community would be very
> essential.
>
> I've never been in Idomeni(I myself am extra-comunitario in Italy, for
> some reasons i can't go) but to have more technical information from the
> camp, you can contact with Over The Fortress, as i know Disaster Tech
> Lab[5] has been there and tomorrow one of my friends from CMN Pisa will go
> to Idomeni with a group, for a week. In return, he can make a report about
> the ultimate situation. Unfortunately i can't neither participate to
> Battlemesh to discuss it face to face. I hope this mail can be a starting
> point to discuss what can communities do about this situation.
>
>
> Thanks for reading.
>
> Berat
>
>
> [0]
> http://www.meltingpot.org/spip.php?page=lang&lang=en#pagination_elenco_articoli
> [1]
> http://www.meltingpot.org/overthefortress-a-handover-to-the-border-of-fortress-Europe.html
> [2] https://secure.avaaz.org/en/petition/stop_skype_asylum_procedure
> [3]
> http://www.meltingpot.org/Sostieni-il-progetto-No-Border-Wi-Fi-della-campagna.html
> [only in italian]
> [4]
> https://www.produzionidalbasso.com/project/solidarity-campaign-overthefortress-support-migrants-journey-with-us/
> [5] http://disastertechlab.org/
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>
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