[Battlemesh] Call for Refugee Camps

[berat at autistici.org]

Hi, that's great! We will keep in touch with you. Today i sent some more 
mails to put in contact everybody interested. Thanks so much for the 
availability!

On 2016-04-25 13:01, i4freegr Community wrote:
> 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 [1]
> 
> 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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> 
> 
> 
> Links:
> ------
> [1] http://facebook.com/i4free.gr
> 
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